Thursday, September 20, 2007

Lots of riding and enjoying it

As the season comes to a close, I feel that I'm probably at my peak form. It's weird because usually at this time of the year I am fairly burnt out and ready for a break. I guess the looming layoff is making me appreciate every day I get to ride outside in shorts!

Saturday I rode 52.17 miles - out to Culvers to the group ride, rode the group ride and rode home. Just a shade over 3 hrs total.

Sunday was a solo ride of 43.57 miles in 2 hours 25 minutes.

Monday was the hilly green route (my last of the year). 25.83 miles in 1hr 7 minutes for an average of 22 (261 norm power)

Tuesday was more or less a long solo recovery ride of 39.04 miles in 2 hrs 22 minutes.

Wednesday was the red route where we went 28.8 miles in 1hr 24 minutes. I pulled about 80% of the way on this group ride, normalized power was 242.

188.41 miles in the last 5 days. That's pretty good for me this year with everything that's been going on.

The weather is looking great for at least the next several days. My goal is to ride every day until we leave next Thursday for our vacation.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Green route Monday, one more time

Good group out last night for the green hilly ride. I felt pretty good so I spent some time pulling and hit the hills as best I could. It was probably the best I felt in a month or so. Craig and Dobo did most of the work and it seemed like every time I went to the front, one of those two would immediately go around me. Made for a pretty quick ride. Unfortunately, I had no sprint as it came down to Craig, Dobo and myself and there was no way to crack those guys. Craig just took off and I couldn't hold his pull and Dobo came around me at the line. That's fine. It's not like I'm ever going to win races via sprinting any time soon!

1:08
24.877 miles
TSS 99.9 (0.937)
Norm 262
PWR 0 886 213
HR 83 189 156
SP 2.3 33.7 21.8

I'm pretty happy with the average considering it was the hilly route.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Rainy day blues

Crap crap crap. Here I have an entire weekend to do nothing but ride and the weather is working against me. The radar kept me from going out as it looked like it would rain any minute. Well it didn't rain until late in the day and I wasted (spent) my time on the trainer. At least it gave me a chance to push it on my TT bike as part of the ride was spent doing a CTS video (on time trialling, how about that?). Now this morning I woke up to it absolutely pouring down. Nutz. Mr Radar is looking a bit friendlier as it looks like it may stop after while. If not, it's back on the trainer.

Right now my motivation for training is low, but motivation for group riding is at an all time high. Doing Fred's Ride (www.fredsride.com) this summer has been great and I've had the chance to ride hard with several good riders. Unfortunately, I'm about done for the season out there. With my two week vacation coming and surgery the week after I come back, by the time I'm ready to ride again it will be November and cold rides in the dark are not my thing. I won't have the fitness anyway by the time I get back on the carbon horse.

On another note, unofficially, I have signed back up with Project Velo Racing for 2008. I thought I was going to get sacked due to my lack of performance, but that's not the case. Once I'm able to get back on the bike post surgery, it's got to be balls to the wall to get ready for spring. Between now and November, it's necessary to come up with a plan to get my ass ready. There are a couple of races I want to key on for 2008 and certain weight checkpoints I want to hit along the way, but other than that, I have very little idea what my training will be like this winter. Now that I have a Powertap on both my road and TT bike, I hope that will help me along the way.

The rain is slowing down a little....

Friday, September 7, 2007

White route Friday - somedays you just don't have it

Funny, Craig, Bruce and I were talking about days when you just don't have it right before the ride. Well, today it wasn't there. A big tailwind going out would lead to a bad headwind coming back and I kind of blew my nut trying to ride too fast with the sweet tailwind. Craig took off and Bruce cut the route to ride home so I had my own little personal hell into the wind.

Overall my average speed was 19.8 over the 24+ mile course, averaging 197 watts. Going out I averaged almost 23 and back was about 17.

Hopefully, the rain holds off long enough to get some miles in tomorrow and Sunday!

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Another green route Monday

After 2.5 days of non-stop eating and loafing I rode over to the Fred's Ride to do the green route. Four other guys made up the fast pack and I was helpless for the most part as they all rode pretty strong. Like last week, I cut the route short and turned right at 571 to head home before the sun got too low.

The green route:
57 minutes
21.11 miles
TSS 72.8 (0.875)
Norm Pwr 245
PWR 0 905 199
HR 83 186 158
SP 2.7 35.5 22.2

My overall ride was 34.6 @ right around 20 mph average.

I weighed myself last night and was surprised that I didn't blow up by 5 pounds after the non-stop eat fest. I was up 1 to 172.5. I'm shooting for 169 by week's end. The goal is to be in the high 160's over the winter (IE: NO hypertrophy lifting this year!!!!) and shave down to the mid-low 160's by 2008's opening race around March.