ok.....

It's high 30's and raining and I see more people (5 not including myself) out riding today than on a typical warm summer day?

Had a guy on Swailes road ride up next to me in his SUV and yelled "Nice bike", then at the intersection of Swailes and Peters yelled "CLEAR". Days like these make me happy.

This brings to a close the first full training week. Tuesday was time trial day as I simulated the 6.2 mile computrainer TT course. Wednesday was an hour of full tempo on the trainer. Thursday was an hour on the trainer with some intervals - Friday was more of the same but less and shorter intervals. Saturday I simulated the 45 mile St Leon race course on the RealAxiom and today I made it outside for a little over two hours.

Great day for a ride

Even though I overdressed, it was a great day out yesterday. For the first hour it was my intention to do as much continuous tempo as I could stand and then just ride around. I headed off to the Fred's Ride routes because the terrain is great for tempo and the traffic is nice and light (especially on a Saturday morning). As I finished up I saw Craig and Brian out for a ride- it's always nice to see other riders out as it makes me feel like less of a weenie on a chilly day. Maybe I'll see more riders today (another 40 degree day).

Ended up with a little over 45 miles in 2:30 as after the tempo ride I just cruised around for a while on the roads near my house. Overall I averaged 175 watts for the ride, but the tempo section was where it needed to be hovering between 210 and 270.

The first "week" of training for 2008 is nearly complete. I only started this past Wednesday though, but that day's ride and Thursday's rides were pretty tough. Short rides, but very hard. Saturday's ride was hard for that first hour as every time I saw my power was low I forced myself to ramp it up. Today's ride is a free ride, meaning just ride how I feel. Right now I feel great, but the first turn of the pedal can prove otherwise. We'll see.

Today was nice too. A little chilly, but I got 2 hours of easy riding in.

2007 season in review

2007 was a season full of ups and downs. My race results were absolutely pathetic, save for a couple of time trials. It was nice though, watching my new team mates have great success over the year.

Toward the end of 2006, I transferred from Team Dayton to Project Velo, following 5 other team mates. Most of the people on Team Dayton were great guys, but it seemed like there was a complete lack of any team unity. I guess that goes hand in hand on a team with open eligibility. For reasons I won't go into, I was prepared back in July to leave Team Dayton and ride for myself in 2007. I was offered the last spot on Project Velo late in the year and decided to take it. Closed eligibility of hand picked riders is a nice change! It allows team management to keep the egos, the jerks and the people that think they are owed something that are all to prevalent out.

2007 started with a couple of indoor time trials in Centerville, then it was straight off to Mentor for the first race of the year. 20 degrees was not an ideal racing temperature. The OVR spring series brought quite a bit of success to the team and made our guys (and gals) watched riders.

By the time summer rolled around most of the development riders had their own agendas and goals so a lot of times I was racing by myself. I did most of the Ohio Cup races as a Master 3/4/5, and I'm the only rider on the team who qualified for that field.

This year, there was no time trial series in Casstown, but Colavita's local chapter picked up the slack with a 20k TT that was held once a month in Greenville. Although I did not have great results (speed wise), I was able to win the season series in my age group by being pretty consistent over the entire series. That was the highlight of my season.

Toward the fall, the races tapered down with a two week vacation to Scotland and the planned surgery. I ended up doing 36 races this year in the time available.

Hopefully with a new game plan, I won't have a repeat of 2007's struggles. My aim is to be 20 pounds lighter at the first race of 2008 than I was at the first race of 2007.

Time and hard work will tell.

Here we go!

Just a photo I found...I miss that helmet (cracked it)

Today starts "training". I've decided to simplify my training down to two things; raising FTP and race surges. Race surges have been a weak spot for as long as I've been racing and I lose too much energy every time I burn a match to connect back to the wheel in front of me. Raising FTP will help specifically in time trials and generally will help my overall cycling fitness.

Then there is the weight loss goal - I'm trying to get back to my cat5 weight of 165 by mid January. That's only 10 pounds away, but I want to make it a slow weight loss so I don't crash and burn from not enough calories in my body (been there, it's ugly).

If (if) I can raise FTP and lose weight at the same time, that will make me way better off when the time trials start in the spring.

Saturday 11-10

Why is it becoming difficult to title these things?

Today was pretty nice out for November in Ohio. It was maybe 40 degrees at the start of my ride. My plan was to ride out and do one of the Fred's Ride routes as it's been a while since I've been out there. That plan went away as I took a sip from the only bottle I brought and it disintegrated in my hand. Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink (as it ended up all over the road!). So I got back home after an hour of riding, got another bottle and rode a while longer. Overall I ended up with 2 hours and 10 minutes of riding, the longest ride since the surgery. I STILL don't like riding over rough roads, but my comfort level is pretty high now. I have a couple more days of just riding around before the actual training starts (November 14th).

Transfer notice 11-6

RFG Solutions has more transfers in the news. They added some real depth to their team for 2008. I didn't see them much in this neck of the woods (being southwest Ohio) this past season, but they are sure to light it up for Team Columbus' races next year.

Etc

Today ended my streak of 7 whole days in a row riding. Now I'm totally pain free on the bike, but today's schedule didn't allow for any time to ride. Tomorrow I am leaving for Grand Rapids where there's a woodworking trade show. No riding will happen until Friday at the earliest as that's when I'll be back in town. It seems like there are thousands of manufacturing companies in Michigan but not many designers or engineers. That bodes well for me, not that there is a lack of work at the moment though.

As for the riding, like I said I am pain free. The power seems to be there but the 5 weeks off hurt the endurance the most. Maybe it's just that before the layoff it was warm out and now it's not. That sure plays into my desire (or lack thereof) to wipe the snot off my nose every 20-25 seconds while riding outside. Maybe I'll get lucky this weekend. It will be a good week to test my power since I'll have the next couple of days off. We'll see.

Transfer notice

Keeping as up to date as possible with local transfers of interest...

David Hutton tranfers from Project Velo to Hincapie's new U23 squad in South Carolina.
Read more about it here.

Scott Thor is moving to California and thus transferring from Stark Velo.
Scott's Website
Stark Velo's website

Jeff Braumberger transfers to Inferno Cycling (Abercrombie & Fitch) from Texas Roadhouse.
Inferno's website

Ray Huang transfers to Team Columbus.

Jeremy Grimm transfers to RGF Solutions.

Good luck next season to everyone!

Flat land time trialler to hill climber?

Can it be done? With our upcoming move to Cincinnati, it looks like where we'll end up is in a rolling to hilly area with some steep pitches in the very subdivision we've been looking at. Since I started riding in 2001, I've basically (and for the most part literally) lived in the middle of a corn field. Other than a couple of short climbs like Horseshoe Bend, Meeker and Fred's "green" route, I ride on flat farm roads. It's made me into a decent time trial rider, but a climber I'm not. Although I am bound and determined to start next season up to 20 pounds lighter (I was 184.5 for the first race of last year) than the beginning of last, which is sure to help, I'm really excited to be moving somewhere that has actual climbs to train on! Between the hills, the weight and more cyclists to train with the goal is to do MUCH better as races like St. Leon, Wilkesville and Hueston Woods.

The sooner we break ground on the clinic, the sooner we start shopping for houses, the sooner I start riding hills. As a plus, Alan told me it's always 60 degrees in Cincinnati, even in the winter. He better be right...

On a side note, I may actually be cleared to ride today. It may be a few minutes on the trainer, but it's a start.

What do you do when you're bored stupid?

What do I do? Ramble on and on about nothing in particular.

I guess it's a good thing that work picked up some 300% since getting back from vacation. Several new projects from several old clients have kept me very busy lately. That's a good thing since it brings more money into the house AND I get to forget about the fact that I can't ride yet. It's a good thing I've given up my "over concern" with mileage goals or I'd pull what's left of my body hair out. On that note, my leg hair length is at a 5 year high. Not cycling=no shaving. They're going to look real odd by the time I'm ready to ride again.

It's been a weird couple of days. I fall asleep every night picturing myself on my time trial bike. Of course, my form looks much better in my pre-sleep thoughts than in real life, but what can you do?

Also in the downtime, I've been playing with my "training" program for 2008. I've decided to forgo 20 minute testing until April in favor of 5 minute testing. 20 minute testing at this time of the year feel counter productive until time trial season gets underway. Hopefully, I'll be back on the bike prior to November 1st or else more tweaking will be needed. I gave myself the first two weeks of November to take it REAL easy on the bike just to get back into the swing of things before ramping up the tempo. Time is already short, so I have to put more emphasis on tempo wattage and less on "e2" type rides to get my legs and lungs ready.

Down for the count

Being lazy sucks. I'm told to not do much this weekend after surgery. I've watched TV since 6 this morning as I couldn't sleep very well. Maybe I should clean my bikes or something...

Surgery went just fine, by the way.

Ride 'em

In the last two days I've ridden my main road bike, my mountain bike and my time trial bike. There is a new MTB park that opened up not far from me at Huffman Dam and I went there yesterday. It's only the 2nd time ever to ride single track and I am not real good at it. Now I can see why mountain bikers have good control over their bikes. Riding with an inch on either side of my handlebars between two trees is hard and unnerving!

Anyway, today is nice out so it will be back on the road bike for a little ride. I'm still recovering from a cold/cough that I got two weeks ago while hiking in Scotland so my rides this week won't be too hard unless I somehow recover in the next two days.

Back from vacation

Two weeks in Scotland, and now it's time to lose the weight from the sticky toffee pudding and cask ales.

Need to get on the bike again...soon!

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.

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.

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....

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!

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.

#35

Race #35 for the year was my last time trial of the season and my 5th of the Colavita Greenville series. Even with my new 808, the headwind was a big pile of suck and averaged on 21mph for the 7 mile out trip. Only averaging 26 mph with a tailwind on the way back made for a bad overall day where I finished 3rd in my age group. All of us in our division finished within 2 minutes and 30 seconds of each other. I had my worst time of the year.

STILL...with the 5 required qualifying rides I locked up the season championship with 1 first place, 1 second place, 2 thirds and a fourth. I'm pretty happy about that at least.

Last night was "Fred's" Monday ride in Tipp. There were several good riders out there and I ended up with a 22.7 average for the 21.2 mile hilly ride. I did have to cut the ride a little short so I could ride home in what was left of the daylight, but overall I rode about an hour and 45 minutes.

A different kind of race

Saturday night was spent in the woods of Scioto Trails State Park as part of a 6 hour orienteering race. I've done this once before, but the last time there was daylight to work with! This time, we started at 8pm and it quickly became dark so it was on with the headlamps and flashlights to try and find the checkpoints. An hour before the race we were given maps with the locations of the checkpoints so we were able to come up with a game plan. The checkpoints are 12"x12" orange and white "things" with about a 1"x1" reflective piece of tape on it. Very hard to see when it's pitch black out!

The team of my wife and I finished 9th out of 15. We really had no expectations except to have fun. My legs are completely trashed from running through sticker bushes and I had long pants on. Ouch.


Link to race website...
http://nsfadventures.com/