#6 Green Tour

Oh the life of a Yellow Springs resident. I haven't heard the phrase "Yeah, man" this much since, well, whenever. And that all came from one guy who was having a conversation with someone else as I walked by. His attire? A tie-died shirt and a hat meant for covering dreadlocks (of which he didn't have). I'm guessing he wasn't even alive during the 70's, let alone the 60's. I won't discuss the peace rally going on either...

Notes on the race:
The good - Rodney Sauser appeared to line up with the cat 1/2 field.
The bad - The cat 1/2 were merged with the 3/4 due to a small field.

The good - I had an all time high 1 minute AND 5 minute power readings.
The bad - The one minute was inside the five minute
The worst - It was on the first lap up devil's backbone

Needless to say, I was dropped and spent the next two hours time trialling. 40 miles by myself, 4 laps up devil's backbone, 20 mph average.

Sucks to be this guy

Original picture
http://jjakucyk.exposuremanager.com/p/hueston_woods_road_race_33008/dsc_079938

#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.

Numbers

171.5 Sunday morning weight in pounds
12 Crackers for "lunch"
40.05 Miles ridden
2:10 Time on bike
1181 kj burned
40 ounces fluid intake during ride
169.0 Post ride weight in pounds
(unknown QTY) Pieces of pizza
2 Belhaven St Andrews Ale
176.55 Miles last week (176.75 the week before!?)
169.0 Monday morning weight in pounds
3,000 Cost in USD of the new bike I want

Base, how low can you go?

I know what that means.

Anyway, base miles suck when you're confined to riding indoors due to being a pussy about riding in single digit temperatures. My Orca hasn't left the trainer since I unhooked it only to hook it up for an indoor time trial last week. My rear tire is now a slick.

The past two weeks I've been re-watching LOST episodes while sitting on the trainer, but today I watched some coverage of the tour of California. If the technology worked like it should in the rain, it would be pretty cool. I kept thinking the break just stopped pedaling, or they all en mass threw their GPS transponders away.

Anyway, anyway, after only a couple of weeks of base, I'm tired of it. I much prefer an hour ride with the bulk of it being intervals, but it needs done. I'm so glad I didn't take last year's approach to winter trainering.

2008 races #2 and #3

#2 was another indoor 10k time trial at Neo Limits
The good: I beat last month's time by 25 seconds
The better: 12 watts higher
The bad: Got beat by Slone in our heat by a wide margin

My time still wasn't where I wanted it to be, but at least I was satisfied with the increase in average watts. Ended up in 3rd place for the 30-39 age group.

#3 was the first Colavita 12 mile time trial in Greenville
The good: Passed 3 people (I started 7th)
The better: 2nd place in the 30-39 age group
The bad: Passed by Roger who started a minute behind me
The worst: Roger is in my age group and therefore beat me handily.
The worst part 2: My wattage and overall speed were BAD
The worst part 3: My average on the return half was LESS than 20mph. That's NEVER happened on my time trial bike, not even days where I go out and have massive long rests during interval training. Nutz.

The wind and cold beat us all up Saturday, and no one broke the 30 minute mark. There was a strong cross wind that blew us around quite a bit too.

I really like this time trial, save for the chip seal roads that beat the living crap out of me. Roger gives out free Colavita pasta at registration and we also got a free Clif bar. For my second place effort, I received a medal and a jar of Colavita Marinara sauce.

Next up barring weather problems is Mid Ohio. Going to race the "B" race, which is considered an approximation of category 3/4.

I missed riding yesterday due to lethargy/housework/paperwork so today is make up day with two hours planned. This is scheduled to be my longest training week, with 13 hours of riding within the parameters of Endurance through Tempo zones.

National Championship in my back yard?

Yep, you heard that right. Check THIS LINK on our team's message board for more information. Also go to Colavita Ohio's website for more info.

This is pretty cool. Originally, I hadn't planned to do very many of the Colavita time trials since we're planning to move to Cincinnati as soon as we get our butts in gear. Now that I found out about this, it changes my plan. The Queen City Wheels weekly time trials will have to wait until later.

First, the official word about Masters Nationals being in Louisville was announced last week, and now this. Now there's no excuses about my motivation to be a time trialist.

Well, Greenville isn't EXACTLY my back yard, but whatever.

Apparently...

Bronchitis is better than Pneumonia. I have the former and my wife has the latter. She seems far worse off. Luckily (??) my sickness hit during a rest week so it didn't tank my training much. I did miss riding yesterday, as the plan was to ride the trainer while watching the super bowl. Instead, I watched it from the comfort of my couch.

I feel pretty good right now, and after a few more cups of coffee I should be ready to ride for a while to make up for yesterday. I was able to sleep from 4 until 7 this morning without interruption. That was nice. I need to get healthy as the next indoor TT is this Sunday.

And base begins

With the beginning of February (soon) starts my one and only, one month long Base period. Back in October when I was laying out my plan I didn't want to pedal endlessly on the trainer for hours at a time. I opted for different approach of tempo and intervals over rides of less than an hour and a half. It's working as today's ride was a test of my 5 minute power and it ended up the highest (by 14 watts) that I've put out since starting my build up in mid-November. My 15 minute power is only now 10 watts off of my best during the last summer, 1 minute power is 20 watts off and 5 minute is now 22 off. 20 second power is where it gets weird, as I pulled off some stupid wattage during a single crit last year and can't get to within 200 (not a typo) watts of that!

Anyway in February is my time to ramp up the hours and build the endurance. These long rides will NOT be like the long rides of last year, as I plan to put plenty of tempo time in as well as short burst intervals.

Below is my schedule, subject to massive revision based on sickness, lifestyle or workload. I worked my butt off through the holidays and up until this week to try and bank enough money to slack a bit during February and catch up on sleep. But with my job the way it is, I could think it's going to be an easy day and by 9am people are calling to get emergencies out the door. Such is life, but I'm not about to change it.


Note that there are only 2 races on the schedule for February, one outdoor and one indoor time trial. The outdoor TT is going to be cold. Suck it up. My first "road race" of the year will be Mid-Ohio on March 1, held on a car/motorcycle race track near Mansfield. More of a circuit race, with each lap being 2.5 miles or so, but you get the jist.

March schedule in it's entirety looks like this:
1 Mid Ohio
2 neo Limits indoor tt
8 Colavita time trial
15 Hueston Woods (Team Columbus)
30 Hueston Woods again (OVR)

I'm ready for winter to be OVER.

Days off

Don't like 'em, but got to take 'em.

Last week was a "not so restful" rest week. I called it a rest week because I did nothing structured, just a ride how I want type of thing. Of course I ended up doing intervals of varying length, but nothing was really ball buster. Should have taken a couple of days off, but I didn't and I think I'm paying for it today. Sore throat, lethargy, grumpy (more than normal!). So today is totally off the bike, first day this year. Tomorrow is back to time trial practice (AKA 16 minute interval) so I need the rest.

On a good note, net weight loss last week was 3.5 pounds. That proverbial "10 more pounds to go" is all that's left. Well, and 1.5 on top of that to get to where I need to be by March.



Friday update - whatever was bothering me Monday turned into a full blown sickness that I've not yet licked. I was able to get in a 45 minute ride (with intervals) Thursday. Power was there, but it pretty sapped me out for the rest of the day. We'll see what today brings, ride-wise, but it will probably mimic yesterday's effort. On another note, I've lost 5.5 pounds in the last 12 days. More to go.

Well hot dog

Finally got the chance to ride a bike outside. It was December 22nd the last time I was on the road. Perfectly timed, I rolled back in my driveway after 2 hours (and 30 seconds) of riding.

Although not cold (low-mid 40's), it was pretty windy. Made for long hauls on the farm roads around here when going right into it. I felt all perched up on the Orca until I remembered that I had a new seatpost and set my seat a bit higher. Can't really tell on the trainer, but made a world of difference on the road.

Tomorrow will probably be back on the trainer due to schedule. Why do people schedule conference calls at freaking 2pm? Blows the whole afternoon. Then it's off to a 5:30 meeting and dinner after. My whole Thursday is shot and it's only Wednesday!

For your viewing pleasure, a list of upcoming time trials for 2008. Join me, will ya?

2-16 Colavita 20k
3-8 Colavita 20k
4-6 Monrovia 40k
4-12 Colavita 20k
5-3 Calvin's 114mi
5-10 Colavita 20k
5-11 Monrovia 40k
5-24 Monrovia 40k
6-8 Monrovia 40k
6-14 Colavita 20k
6-22 State championship 23mi
6-29 Monrovia 40k
7-12 Colavita 20k
7-20 Monrovia 40k
8-3 Monrovia 40k
8-9 Colavita 20k
8-31 Monrovia 40k
9-13 Colavita 20k
9-14 Monrovia 40k

Time Trialling

Sunday's effort was not my best. 281 watts for 16:50 was good for 3rd in my division and 10th overall (out of 43). It got me thinking about time trialling. People either love them or HATE THEM WITH A PASSION! I actually like them. I guess it came from when I started riding in 2002 (yeah, I only started riding when I was 32 years old, shut up) where all I did was ride by myself as hard as I could. Back then was when I was in my "weight loss" mode. I ran quite a bit and fancied myself as a duathlete until I realized that 21 minute 5k's would get me nowhere even if I could ride a bike fast. I bought a time trial bike (the one I have now) before I ever even thought about bike racing and just rode it for fun as fast as I could.

Forward to 2005, my first season as a fresh cat 5. I was having a pretty good season going into the Tree City Stage Race, which consisted of a road race, time trial and criterium, all time based in a combined cat 4/5. I finished at the back of the pack around 25th or so in the road race, but was "same time" as everyone but the stage winner (time bonus). The time trial was early on Sunday morning where I pulled out 2nd place in my field. My time would have been top 5 for cat 3's and top 10 in the 1/2 field. A time trialler was born that day. So I crashed in the crit and lost my spot in the GC that afternoon, but so what? :)

I only did one other TT that season, again as part of a stage race. It was the Midwest Championship Stage race in Bloomington, Indiana. I got 3rd place in the ABR cat 4 division.

In 2006 I competed in 11 time trials, including two sub-1 hour efforts at the Monrovia 40k race, and a bronze medal in the state championships. In 2007, I did 9 TT's along the way to winning the Colavita series. Overall, 11 podiums out of 23 entered races.

What does all this mean? Those who love time trials, time trial. Those who don't only do it if it's required for a stage race. That doesn't diminish the success I've had, though, at least to me since it's only people who love time trials that TIME TRIAL.

I'm not sure what the future will hold for this time trialler, but it's getting clearer a little more as time passes. My racing age is 38 this season, so in two years (duh) I'll be 40. At 40, I'll be at the young end of my age bracket and will probably switch the bulk of my races to the master's group. Over the next two years, I hope to build myself up to being somewhat competitive on a national level in time trials. There, I put it in writing so if it doesn't happen, I'll look like quite the chump.

Oops

Apparently I've been training on the wrong computrainer course. The profile for Sunday's race was emailed to me it's different than what I found on the web. The old one looks harder (more climbs). Oh well.

Well here is a sad sight. My Orca, in a near permanent locked-in state on the trainer. Notice new Thomson Elite seatpost. From what I heard, my old carbon post was sawed and chiseled out.





At least the Orca will be taken off the trainer Sunday! To be put on ANOTHER trainer at the indoor TT.

Oops again.

2008 team kit

January 2nd and team kits are already here - sweet!


This year's gear list is as follows:
2 short sleeve jerseys
1 sleeveless jersey
2 pair of bib shorts
1 winter jacket (sweet!)
1 long sleeve skin suit
6 pair of socks
Hat
Baselayer