Sucks to be this guy

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#5 Heuston Woods

40 category 3's lined up, with me being the only representative from my team. Olympus had the most riders, then Dayton, then COBC. Anthem, Darkhorse, Team Turner and Echelon rounded out the field. The race started at the base of the first hill, and from what I understood it was supposed to be neutralized until the top. Well, Team Turner had two little tiny guys take off. 4 seconds into the race started my highest 1 minute power average for the entire day. So much for that. It didn't take much to get back together but a few miles in a real attack happened up hill and that's all she wrote. I just can't climb like these guys, and I'm stronger and lighter than last year! Four of us who ended up getting dropped team time trialled for a while then my real fun began. 20 miles in, my front dérailleur stopped working with any sort of efficiency and 7 miles later my powertap hub died, probably due to the rain, but hopefully due to a dead battery. Finished a lap down on the field.

Oh, guess who won the cat 3 race? Good Lord he's tough. I think he's well past the mandatory upgrade point....oh well, maybe it would be more logical for me to bitch about it if I was finishing in SECOND place to him every week!

166.5

That was this morning's weight and the lowest I've been in three years. That being said, I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now and just polished off a muffin and I'm sucking down an Americano.

This weight is a complete surprise since I went to an Easter buffet Sunday and ate myself stupid. I think the extra mileage has something to do with it. Last week was my highest mileage week since last September (right before we went to Scotland for two weeks, and thus, killing my season).

The first road race for OVR is this week. Weather wise, it looks like we'll get the chance to actually race. It's about time!

Designing a training camp

Sitting around with nothing better to do, I designed a perfect training camp for Ohio category 3 riders. In Ohio, our road races aren't hilly and aren't very long. 90+ mile slogs up some mountain somewhere don't make the cut, although that sounds like more fun than riding the trainer. Here is my idea:

Precamp
-Evening bike fitting/adjustments/etc

Day 1
-Breakfast
-3 hour rolling route at tempo
-Lunch
-Nap
-1 hour of technical work be it pace line, explosions out of corners, what have you
-Dinner w/team building or Q&A

Day 2
-Breakfast
-Late morning time trial
-Lunch or throw up breakfast because of the time trial
-Nap
-3 hour mid afternoon rolling route at E2
-Dinner, etc

Day 3
-Breakfast
-1 hour late morning crit
-Lunch or puke
-Nap
-3 hours rolling @ E2
-Dinner, etc

Day 4
-Breakfast
-3 hours tempo+
-Lunch
-Nap (I love naps)
-Evening time trial
-Dinner, etc

Day 5
-Breakfast
-3 hour E2
-Lunch
-Go home

That would make a great camp for me. Throw in a few bottles of a good Dolcetto and my wife to be with me during the non-riding portions and that would be damn near perfect.

French Fry training

Had one of my best training rides last night, after a lunch at a place called Red Robin. If you've never been to this place, they have expensive "all you can drink" drinks (non alcoholic, damn) and "all you can eat fries". My chicken bruschetta sandwich came with garlic fries of which I had two servings. When I finally got home I hit the trainer for an hour of power (I also rode in the morning) and had a normalized and average power way above normal. Maybe it was because I knew I had to work the fries off. The rub was that I ended up losing 1.5 pounds yesterday. Not like I needed or wanted anything else to eat, but the sandwich and fries and fries and fries was the only meal of the day.

I told my wife I can never eat there again though. I could slog my way through so many fries it wouldn't be funny.

Pissing on who got you there?

A few cases have come up in the last couple of weeks where I've found people completely pissing on organizations who either got them or helped them get to where they are today. One was work related and one was cycling related (hence the post about it on my cycling blog).

Work was related to someone completely crapping on their former company and other companies "in the industry". Professionally, this is a bad way to go. You will never know when it could come around and bite you. I worked for a company years ago (left in 2000), and found myself just last year co-working on a large project with them! How bad would it have been for me, my client and the company if I would have spent the better part of seven years dragging them through the mud?

Cycling was relating to a rider commenting about his old team. How they didn't do "this" or "that" to his personal approval level of expectation (whatever that my be). What if your current team manager overheard that, or read it on a blog? If I was that manager, I would think as soon as their done with my team, he's going to bitch about things, policies, what we did wrong (in his opinion)

What comes around goes around. When outsiders have a listen to what you say, it makes them wonder if you soon be bitching about them when their situation changes. You don't know in this day and age with blogs, forums, and email, who is reading what and it could be about you. In a more traditional sense, with local industries being fairly incestuous, you never know that the person you are bitching to is friends with the person you're bitching about.

In the business world, I've found it's best to keep my mouth shut (non disclosure agreements help with that :) )

Title goes here

Felt like I stole one today for some reason. 55 degrees with a nice wind and two hours on the road. Tempo efforts into the wind sucked but the 20 second intervals with the wind ruled. It felt very nice to be wearing shorts, as my little white sticks need some sun. This was my first ride in 1.5 days (gasp) because I worked too long and was beat by the end of the day. Spending 10 hours at a client's office is SO much different than 10 hours working at home with dogs at my feet.

It's only March 13th and I've missed too many days of riding this month. I missed 2 days in January, 4 days in February and now 3 days in March.

This Saturday has two races on my schedule due to last week's TT being postponed because of the snow. 8am is a 20k time trial in Greenville and 1:30pm is a race around Hueston Woods. I should be dead by Sunday. Hopefully, both the weather and my body cooperate.

Race (and TT) #4

Mid Ohio was canceled due to the weather so the only race for me this weekend was the final indoor time trial of the series. My time and wattage closely replicated my January effort. Not that that's a good thing. I was told that most people were running slower - what is it about computrainers that does that?

After I got home, the weather was nice enough to get an actual outdoor ride in. Of course, I had to put on a fresh rear Kenda as the old one was now a slick from all the trainer time. Even though the wind was blowing me around, it was nice to get out and hit the pavement for once. Since the breeze was coming in from the south, the ride north along the newly paved (last year) section of Peter's Pike was awesome. I love the stretch between Old Springfield and Evanston. Actually, I love the section starting at Dog Leg and National, heading north on Dog Leg. The "Yield" right turn onto Old Springfield is fast, then there's really no need to stop for the left turn onto Peter's. This is where I do my 20 minute time trial intervals - one of the few places I can ride for 20 minutes without having to stop for traffic.

Speaking (typing?) of time trials, the next Colavita TT is this Saturday. That will make 5 time trials before I get an actual road race in. The Saturday after that is Team Columbus' version of the Hueston Woods road race - I guess that will be my first road race of 2008.