Swine Flu ?

Been feeling a little under the weather for the past few days - no appetite, no strength or endurance; enough so that I skipped the Dana Point Gran Prix - and no celebratory mocha @ JC Beans either! Still, I managed to get some riding in, long slow. Felt better today and so headed out to Fiesta Island for some interval work.

The goal was 4 10 minute efforts at 95-102% LTHR with 3-5 minutes recovery between. The breakdown went down like this:

• Interval 1: AvgHR: 170; AvgPW:304; AvgCad 97; AvgW/Kg 3.87
• Interval 2: AvgHR: 170: AvgPW:270; AvgCad 98; AvgW/Kg 3.44
• Interval 3: AvgHR: 167: AvgPW:274; AvgCad 80; AvgW/Kg 3.49
• Interval 4: AvgHR: 176: AvgPW:293; AvgCad 86; AvgW/kg 3.73

Man, a little slacking in the middle! Finished strong at the end... The good thing is that my weight is dropping and my power is increasing - I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to work, but who's complaining. Need to crank it up a notch for Mt Evans.

At lunch I took a quick trip up Mt. Soledad; a bit of sharp headwind and some soreness from the morning ride ensured a slower time, but still posted a sub-13min effort and an average Power of 322 watts. I'll try an "official" TT up it next week.

Tomorrow is the Wednesday Cyclovets ride out to east county, 75 miles+ and 5800' of climbing. Good Times.

New Toy

After waiting nearly 7 month my new toys finally arrived via slow boat from France. A set of Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL's with a PowerTap SL Hub. Sexy, Sexy!!!

I've been using a PowerTap Elite for the past few months and I'm more than convinced that if you are serious about training and racing you need some sort of power meter be it Ergomo, SRM, iBike... the PowerTap is the simplest and most portable option out there.

I gave them a shakedown cruise this Sunday, a 5 hour trek through the winding roads of Rancho Santa Fe and Fairbanks Ranch. They are fast! The hub does add some weight, but the aero rims do seem to "hold their speed" longer, and when they are wound up they motor right along. Under heavy torque - standing climbs and the like - the rear wheel does flex somewhat, but the front tracks true on fast descents. Recently, I had the chance to ride another deep vee wheel, a Reynolds DV66 an amazing wheel, stiff, very fast- the Carbones differ in that they ride a bit more smoothly that and they are 16mm less deep. All in all not too shabby and worth the wait. Well see how they do in the next Crit.

Status

One of the good things about last weekend's Time Trial, actually the only good thing, was that I was able to get some useful data; namely my Lactic Threshold Power and my Lactic Threshold Heart Rate.

I already had a pretty good idea of where my Heart Rate Threshold sits... somewhere north of 180bpm and south of 188bpm. It's a little high for my age, something that at first glance might seem to be a reason for congratulations, but - I won't go into it here - really isn't. The Time Trial pegged it at 184, right where it should be.

As for the Power portion of the equation, you take the average power output for a 20 minute Time Trial - in this case 303watts and multiply it by 93% - which kicks out a Threshold Power @ LT of 282watts. My "Lactate Threshold Zone" becomes 256 - 296. Stay within this bracket and I'm loving life, outside of it and it's not a pretty sight. This is a little below a test I did a month earlier, but I'll chalk it up to the change to a more aggressive TT position on the bike. Dividing the Power @ LT by my weight give me approximately 3.7 watts/kg.

So three numbers to remember: 184 bpm, 282 watts, and 3.7 watts/kg.

Not exactly Lance Armstrong territory - we'll see where we end up at the end of the month.

Race Report Part Three:

Sunday was the Crit, 40 minutes in a Mira Mesa office park. Instead of driving to the race I decided to ride in and use the miles as my warm up - almost a costly mistake as I took a few wrong turns - huh, maybe I can justify purchasing a Garmin after all...

As I mentioned before I usually hate crits, 90 degree turns tend to make the racing tense and sketchy - or maybe it just makes me tense and sketchy. This course was more to my liking, more oval than rectangle, with the only 90 corner at the top of a 50' rise. Not knowing how I would react after 2 days of racing I rolled up to the start and sat on the back for the first few laps.

Feeling better than I expected, and probably filled with more than a little nervous energy, I hit the uphill a little hard about 5 laps in and gaped the front. Looking back I thought I might see one or two riders on my wheel that I could work with... no one. So, I was stuck out there all by myself with absolutely no chance to stay away. After a lap another rider bridged up to me, but then sprinted past and took my place dangling off the front. I sat up and rejoined the group, slinking to the back and trying to recover from the effort.

For the rest of the race I tried to sit in the pack and allow everyone else to do the work. Each lap pretty much mirrored the one before: pace picking up on the slight rise into turn one, a quick downhill run into turn 2, hiding in the pack and fighting for position as we motored into the backstretch headwind and turn 3, and braking and climbing through turn number 4. With about 5 laps to go the pace picked up and a few riders tried to get off the front. Everything came together as we all prepared for the sprint.

I'd been pretty smug about drafting off of everyone and playing it safe after my ill advised break a way attempt, but now found myself corralled in by the other riders. As we made it to the bottom of the rise into the last turn I'd resigned myself to a mid pack finish. A small gap open up to the outside and I sprinted for it. I came out of the last turn wide and sprinting out of the saddle. I kept my head down and legs spinning. Crossing the line I was spent, after dissecting the race data (Side note: if you don't already have a PowerTap, SRM, Ergomo, etc... get one! Forget getting a new bike, frame, or wheelset - those can wait!) I looks like I was pushing 33.2 mph and 1078 watts on the line. Good enough for 5th place. Considering I went into the last turn somewhere around 20th and didn't take advantage of any sort of lead out, I'll take it.

All in all I finished the Omnium in 10th place. Something to build on!

Race Report Part Two: Improvement?

Saturday was the road race a 22 mile circuit starting at the Golden Acorn Casino and winding through the mountains near Campo, Ca. The 5's were scheduled to start at 7:20 in the morning. The early start combined with a 50 minute drive from San Diego and my general tendency to worry about being late meant a 4:30 wake up time.

It was 35 degrees at the start... 2 years removed from the cold of Colorado has made me very, very weak... anything below 60 makes it amazingly easy to convince myself that it's a day for the trainer and a DVD of the 1998 Tour De France. Leg warmers, Polypro base layers, and EPC jacket was the kit for the day. The first 10 miles was a fairly fast, twisting 1500' decent. A quite a few of the riders had started the race without gloves, I have no idea how they did it... even with gloves my hands felt like lobster claws by the time we made the turn at the railroad tracks and begin to reclaim our lost elevation.

No one really attacked, they just picked up the pace. Within the first mile I was grateful for my choice of the Dura Ace 1380's over the PowerTap DT Swiss combo - a choice which allowed me to catch back on to the lead group after getting gaped 2 miles from the finish of the first lap. No power data to analyse, but a better race result. By the end of lap one over half of the field had been dropped.

Lap number two was practically toasty! It followed the same script, the pace was ratcheted up notch by notch and riders simply slid off the back. At the turn onto Old Hwy 80 three groups formed and I found myself in the third. One of the guys from Moment Cycle Sport was doing a ton of the work, and no one else was really pulling through to help him. Occasionally one of his teammates would take up the lead. Eventually, I moved up to give him a break and found myself setting the tempo for the last mile. About 200 feet from the line the two hangers on sprinted past leaving me to pull through in 15Th place - what a sucker.

All in all I was pretty happy with the results. 15th on the stage and 6 points to the Omnium placing me in 20th place - considering the poor TT showing not too shabby.

Race Report: Never take a knife to a gun fight

This past weekend was the Cyclovets Omnium. Three days of racing consisting of a Time Trial, a Road Race, and a Crit. An omnium is kind of like a mini stage race, but you aren't required to race all three days; instead you can, say race the TT and the Crit, but miss the Road Race... or you can race the Road Race and the Crit and skip the TT, or you can... you get the idea. Your placing in each race is worth a set amount of points. At the end of the three days the points are totaled and the winners given the spoils. In the world of Cat 5 racing the spoils consist of plastic medals.



The first race, Friday's, was the Time Trial, 2 laps around the World Famous Fiesta Island Loop - each lap 4.1 miles of nearly pancake flat Mission Bay property - your only obstacles a brisk early morning head wind and the occasional drunken fisherman - a time trialer's paradise.



I'd raced the Fiesta Island Time Trial Series a month before and was properly schooled by skin suited greyhounds riding full on professional cycling machines; the type of bikes that put Lance Armstrong's $10,000 time trial rig to shame. Where anyone that kind of money to throw at this sport blows my mind. So I came ready for battle this time with a set of clip on aero bars and my saddle thrust as far forward as I could stand.



I rode to the start from my house to warm out, bringing my total time riding with aero bars to a nice round 1 hour - surely enough time to master the more aggressive riding position and razor sharp handling my new bars gave my bike. I pulled into the queue for the start and waited for my countdown.



Within the first 4 miles I had already lost 1 minute to the leaders... Of course, at the time I did not know that; I thought I was doing pretty good - only occasionally hitting my elbows with my knees, not weaving to badly from one side of the road to the other. The Powertap was reading a fairly steady 300 watts and my heart rate was holding steady just under threshold @ 184 - right on track. 6 miles in I heard the tell tale whoosh, whoosh of a tri spoke wheel. The rider effortlessly passed me by, a Porsche to my snowplow - him: full TT bike with front tri spoke wheel, rear disc, and aero helmet - me: road bike, clip on aero bars, road helmet, and my 3.5 pound powertap rear wheel. I snuck a quick look at his number 412, I was 408. Doing, the math (30 sec starts, 412-408=4, etc...) I'd lost 2 minutes on this rider... it did not look to good. At the end of the day I finished in 21st place, in just under 21 minutes, 2:38 down to the leaders.

Actually, I felt pretty good. I rode within myself, concentrated on steady power, stayed within my limits. I was just pushing too much air.

Don't get me wrong, "a good workman never blames his tools", but... I probably should invest in a TT bike.

The Begining

So, here we go... a blog. I never expected to write one, much less even thought about who would even be interested in reading it. Mostly, I'm hoping it will keep me focused on my training and serve as motivation to take my cycling more seriously.



This season I decided to kick things up a notch and hire a coach. For the past few years I've tried to set up my own training program - a kind of Frankenstein marriage between Joel Friel and Chris Carmichael - which I religiously adhered to for a week or two at best. The program usually consisted of copious amounts of base miles, fueled by scones and lattes from the local coffee shop. Needless to say, once race day came I was spit out the back



This year I contacted my old Coloradan friend and X-Terra Pro, Cody Waite. He put together a killer program tailored to strengthen my weaknesses and enhance my, well... strengths (a little awkward wording). I you have been thinking about hiring a coach and have been hemming and hawing; stop hemming and hawing and pony up the cash... It's beyond worth it. Now a little shameless plug about coaches - make sure get one who practices what they preach. That's one of the things I like about Cody, he's out there competing - personally putting his coaching philosophy to the test day in and day out. Alright, free advertising over.



This year I threw together a mix of road races (very few), time trials (even fewer), time trials (even fewer yet), and crits (tons, this is southern California after all...). By the way, I hate crits (I'm actually pretty good at them) and love hill climbs (I absolutely suck at them). Work has invaded life and so I haven't hit all my races, but have kept up on the training.



So wish me luck, and there it is; the first post.