The Longest 100 Meters

And with that.. a move

After my rag on Pete, it's time to move blog software and finish the migration, so here goes. Now over here: http://www.cycleanywhere.com/wordpress

Pete Custer interrupted my UFC Unleashed!

Here I am watching my manly man UFC unleashed on SpikeTV... and then.. hey look, a bike shop commercial, hey it's Spokes. Woah.. wait a second, is that Pete Custer?! Woah.. did he just head tilt and give that smile?!??? I need to see if he'll teach me to head tilt like that the next time we line up to race!

Back at it, post RSR

First.. the important stuff - the new ride all done - SRAM Force, Kinlin XR270's with a PT Pro rear and a swapped seat post for the zero setback Thomson Elite. She weighs in at 16.99 lbs as pictured: After a month of no racing, it was great to be back in the peloton again yesterday. For two reasons, really. First, my legs had been dead ALL week. I hit a really bad patch in my training starting Monday and just couldn't get out of the slump. Totally frustrated with the response from my legs, I took an unscheduled day off on Friday before racing on Saturday. Another rest day today and back at it tomorrow. Second, my Cat 3 upgrade came through last month so this weekend was my first racing in the 3's and 1/2/3's. That being said, I didn't go in with any crazy ambitions this weekend. Our team was putting on the races and sitting at a corner all day as a road guard doesn't lend itself to warming up well. Fortunately, we had a great turn out of volunteers for the racing so I did end up getting to double the racing and do both the 3' and the 1/2/3 race. I pack finished both races but had a BLAST racing this weekend. The course was wide open and crazy fast. The 1/2/3 race averaged right under 29 mph for the 30 miles we raced - and other than really a stretch of about 10 minutes or so when I pushed through the "wow, i didn't get a good warm up in," I felt good. The best part? I could really feel it in my leg coming back about half way into the 1/2/3 race. Those sensations that you get when you know the legs will do what you want them to do. That bodes well for the week of training coming up rolling into Church Creek TT this weekend. Rockin! So with that, I head into a stretch of racing from now until August, minus - I think - only two weekends while I'll be up in the Adirondacks. Shout ..

May, so far

There's a post I made about two weeks ago now. It describes the "Tom V Car" incident up on the W&OD that happened on 2 May. I've still got the post on the blog site but it's hidden for now. I'll unlock it in another two weeks or so when the insurance crud is all done. The good news is, the insurance crud is working itself out. Losses of the Tom V Car incident were: Felt F55 (toast) Velocity Aerohead PTap Pro wheelset Giro Atmos Helmet Skin The Felt F55 will be replaced next week with a Blue RC8. SRAM Force build. (the picture is the SRAM Red) The Velocity Aeroheads are being replaced by Kinlin XR270's (same powertap hub). I seriously debated going to Zipp 404's. I just couldn't break the bank that way right now. The helmet was replaced with a Giro Atmos (all black - which matches the team kit WAY more). Skin... well.. I can say my leg itches like mad right now as the skin replaces itself. So, all that... With parts I scrounged and a couple extra ordered, I was able to rebuild my Roubaix and have been riding the snot out of her again. Man, did I miss that bike. The Felt was a nice aggressive and stiff frame. The Roubaix is way higher on the front end with an enormous head tube. But, wow... it transfers power WAY better at the bottom bracket and - for those that wonder - YES, you can feel the difference between an aluminum frame with carbon forks/stays and a full carbon frame. That Roubaix feels like the Cadillac of road bikes. No racing this month, just training. I'm concentrating on threshold level pacing on the TT bike on Mondays. Tuesdays are my night to thrash the legs with the fellas. Friday's are my night for threshold training on the road bike. Tonight was 3x20's and felt okay. It wasn't anything to scream about, but it was good. I rolled 18 hours la ..

Tour de Ephrata

First, I have to give a shout to Rich with the Red Rose Races or All That is Good races, or whatever he is calling himself this year. The event was run very well with the only glitch being an excruciatingly long wait for the TT results on Sunday. I rode this race last year with Westwood Velo in the 3/4, but was no where near prepared like I was this year. I definitely enjoyed it much more this year. Pete and I rode up Friday, and boy were we glad for that. The road race course was way different than last year and pre-riding the course was a huge advantage as I watched a number of guys slide out in the unswept corners with some serious gravel. Road Race: The road race started off like normal, neutral and I rolled out about mid-pack. Moving up took forever with the yellow line rule and by the time I did, a Bike Rack guy was off the front solo. We let it sit there for almost a whole lap before another Bike Rack guy moved out of the pack and up to him. With a well established break of about 15-20 seconds and the only full team (6-7 riders) represented, time to get into that break and make it stick. I launched 4-5 times, but was marked immediately by Bike Rack guys dragging the pack up to me if I got any gap at all. A couple other folks did the same and those moves were also marked. That insured one thing - the break wasn't going to stick. I'm convinced that had the Bike Rack guys let 2-3 riders out of the pack one at a time, the break would have stuck. But, their insistence on keeping the break to only their riders only kept the pace of the pack just a little bit too fast, so as we cruised through the S/F of lap 2, the break was over. One guy did get up to the break eventually, but it only lasted about 3 miles with the two of them. Bike Rack attempted to keep the pace up with half a lap to go and into the technical finish, but it just didn't happen. The pack collapsed on them a number of times through the technical sections inside 2km to go ..

(2Syn-Fit)+(2Dolan)=Toast

What a rockin weekend of bike racing. Here's the synopsis, I'll try to keep it short. First, I've settled on a warm-up routine for crits. As a guy leaned more toward road racing that needs the legs to get warm, I've decided that I just need to get out on the bike for an hour or more of L1/L2 spinning with some rolling terrain or some 30-45 second threshold level efforts to get things rolling. This keeps me from cooling down too fast at the inevitable start line "freeze" waiting for the whistle. Syn-Fit Crit Cat 4: Round and round, got in a couple early moves and watched for a break to get established up the road. Nothing was going and that was really getting frustrating. In typical Cat 4 fashion, no one ever lets a guy get more than 5 seconds up the road. This kept the pace high the whole race. Callahan pulled me up to the front to get me a launch right as the prime lap was called. He thought he wasted but actually it worked out just right. The plan was to launch immediately after the "prime slow down" that happens almost always right after the prime sprint. Launched it into turn one and got a gap fast. No one came across and with now 10 laps to go, I was on my own. I looked under the arm a couple times to see guys trying to bridge, but no one ever made it across and the inevitable failure of my one-man break happened just after the 2-to-go. Evolution was the force on the front, as far as I could tell at the end, but I take consolation that they didn't place a guy top 10 after shutting me down. Pack finish after the pace blew up with the Bike Rack guys on the last laps and I never recovered from the break. Syn-Fit Crit Cat 4 35+: The team took a huge win, and - sorry to the other teams - but we man-handled the peloton. We had a good team meeting before the race and planned our strategy. With no breaks sticking all day at Syn-Fit, we didn't expect one to stick here either and planned for our sprint lead out. I ended up in an unex ..

Walkersville and Tyson's: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Walkersville 35+ 4/5 (The Good) It's nice to know when you're coming into pretty good form. It's also nice to know that you can pretty much go into a day fresh and do with your legs what you want to do with them. Walkersville was one of those days. The race report for Walkersville isn't anything exciting for someone to read, I suppose. We set off on the course with the 20-30 MPH winds. The folks that were out there know the headwind you were getting on the long straight road. The pack was pretty content to not race. We rolled through an excruciatingly tame first lap. We rolled back into the headwind and teammate Gould was sitting on the front at a slow tempo with the pack all behind him. I pulled through and around and yanked him off the front and let some other folks feel it. We crested the turn at the flashing light and an unattached guy (Pete) pulled up and away, not by much - maybe 4-5 seconds. Bike Rack dude and I were cruising the front side by side joking about how right about then the rider was thinking "Maybe I can take this for 35 miles to the finish?!" Hah.. right. I closed the gap with the pack on me hanging the turn to the descent, and after having given a pretty good jump to feel out what the legs would do, I figured it was time to see what was going on. I hit the base of the stair step climbs and jammed. By the crest of the climb I was off the front by a handful of seconds, looked over the shoulder saw three guys coming across and pedaled through the descent just hard enough to stay away but still let them get over to me without crushing it. This is where the team took over. My guys Gus and Chris were a massive force in the pack keeping the tempo back, and a lap later we were off the front by around a minute. Pete and I did the bulk of the effort in the break, but the poor fellas that were with us were probably 50 pounds lighter and the wind was just killin them. We held the gap strong until lap 4 when it came down to 25 ..

Just plugging away....

Half way through March, and things seem to be moving along right. Hours on the bike are right and I'm putting out numbers that show I'm getting stronger and stronger. Now if I can shed these pounds ... so, it's been back to the micro-managed diet this week. Once I get in the habit, I actually enjoy the dieting thing. It's getting in the habit that is so hard. I don't need to shed a ton of pounds, about 2½ kg. I've had questions about how I drop weight, and this is pretty much how I do it. About 2 yrs ago I had my RMR measured (resting metabolic rate). It was measured 3 times between 2200 and 2400 calories. It's a little different than BMR, but it provides me the right starting point. So, with that in mind I estimate on the low side and assume my daily "non-biking" output is 2200 calories. There's a little debate how to convert kJoules from the powermeter files over to calories burned. I know a bunch of people that use 1.1 or 1.2x the kJoules with success, but to be honest - there's enough math in my life. For me, I call it a 1:1 amount. If the Powertap says 1000kj of work, I call it 1000 cal burned. Some people say "Don't weigh yourself every day!" Whatever. I do it every morning after I relieve the bladder. I log everything about the food I eat. I use a program called "NutribaseEZ" because it has an awesome food database - and it's licensed for as many computers as I want to use it on. It has a EASY customizable database for recipes and all sorts of stuff (the shortfall of most of the programs I've used). I get really anal retentive here. If there's something not in my database, I take a photo of the label and toss it in later. Especially for things you grab at the 7-11 or something out on a ride. I also count carbs/prot/fat's. 70-15-15 is my ideal carb/fat/prot mix. That's what works for me anyway. On 15-16 hrs per week, I'm running right around 29000 calories for a whole week's diet to maintain. If I run a deficit daily ..

Little things

I'm certainly not an "old timer" when it comes to riding a bike. I started riding more than "recreationally" in 1999 on a mountain bike. I rode on and off in mountain bike form until 2005 when I switched to road biking. So for me, just under 4 years. But, what I can say I do - I really study and pay attention and log how I feel, when I feel it and what things my body is doing when I'm training. I feel like I have a pretty good barometer for when my body is making the right kind of progress (and when it's going in the tank - though it's hard to admit it even when I know it's happening). So, with some movement of off days this week in my training schedule to accommodate family scheduling and rolling into training camp, I came slightly fresher than I normally might this time of year. I took advantage of that to pound in some good long miles and see how the body feels on the aerobic base side. More importantly, how is my recovery from day to day on high TSS - and can I start ramping in the intensity the way I want?

Date             TSS     IF    Hours    KM        kJ
03/05/09 (Thu) 220.02   0.820   3.27   101.74   2954.67
03/06/09 (Fri) 234.52   0.729   4.41   131.63   3380.07
03/07/09 (Sat) 258.93   0.781   4.25   131.64   3674.86
03/08/09 (Sun) 352.68   0.810   5.38   168.05   4777.46

Thursday was a good long ride day, nothing crazy about it. Friday I hit the lunch ride at the Point for some spirited wind ups before rolling on my way. Saturday was just a good cruising pace out to Dry Mill and back. I honestly didn't expect today to be nearly that intense a ride. It should have been way lower than that - like IF .73? But with the IF that high for 5+ hours after a 3 day stretch leading into it - me thinks FTP might be underestimated. We'll see soon enough. I got on the bike this morning and the legs hit the chill morning air, and I began thinking ... hrmmm... 5+ hrs? But I'm sitting here now with fat ..

Great, great week

Rolled a great week on the bike this week. I started the week with 75 min @ 340 watts. Next day: 4x4x4 VO2 workouts: 422, 419, 421, 408 watts. Everything else this week has been tempo or endurance, with a 90 minute recovery spin on Wedneday. Polished the week of with 15+ hrs on the bike. Yesterday's ride was a hard 3½ hours in a brutal wind and I expected to be really sore out on the bike. But as soon as I got the legs spinning today, they opened up immediately. Took 4 hours with Pete, and for the first two hours or so we had a great tailwind and some pretty easy riding. We turned into the strong winds on the way home and I settled in and rolled. My legs are tired today, but they're the right kind of tired. It's been a week of really earning the rest days, but the rest days are plenty to get back to the training with the right amount of "feel goodness" I still need to drop 5-7 lbs, but that should start rolling off pretty easy now that I'm getting good consistent hours to compete with my appetite! The weather should only get better from here, right? Hrmm.. we'll see about that. Ride safe, VW