"Race" Update

I went out to the Cat 1 rodeo today. Of course it was not as described, but I did get a heck of a workout. As is the case in most places, there was one "head of state"... there was only one "pro" (that was the way he was described to me). I saw the guy when I rolled up... there was no mistaking that he was the head guy... it was written all over him...

The truth is that there are a lot of good riders down here that are very comfortable killing it at high speeds in wind. There is an art to riding in the wind for long periods of time... these guys have figured it out. They stay relatively aero, even when they are on their tops... they conserve energy and stay off the front if they don't have the energy... they know not to trade pulls with that guy...

I, of course, did not know. For the first 10 minutes we rolled at a ridiculously slow pace... My ergomo was showing a NP of 120 Watts at the end of warmup. I have never seen such a low number. As luck would have it, I end up on the pro's wheel when he decides that the warmup is over. He starts adding on the wattage... slow and steady... at some point, I look down and I see 500 Watts... he keeps on... at some point, I look down and I see 700 Watts... he keeps on... at some point I see 850 Watts... he finally comes off. I cant see anymore, but I manage to come around him and turn around as if I am not hurting... the group is way back... no one else is stupid enough to get pulled out on this suicide effort with this guy... 5 miles into a 55 mile ride... no warmup... and big surprise, I ate fried food and drank a lot last night... so much for the racer's edge....

It took me a solid 20 miles to recover from the efforts I made in the first 10 miles. This guy kept shooting off and I kept following and no one else was bothering. Next thing I know, I can barely hold on the group. I recovered and started working again... I had a dehydration headache when I woke up (from booze and oysters) and it was worse now (give me a break... it is vacation)... later on in the ride and ended up with a great workout for the day. Not what was advertised, but I got all I could handle... especially on vacation...

SURPRISE!!!

I am sure you are very excited... I actually have a wireless connection in my condo down here, so there will be plenty of blogging time...

I found a way to make 5x5s feel longer. Do them on completely flat roads with no wind.

I did five yesterday... the numbers were actually pretty good... all five between 340 Watts and 360 Watts. My legs were a little numb from the workload of the past week, but good overall. It is a long five minutes when you are doing intervals at 25 mph on your hoods... I think the distance covered in each interval makes it feel long. Either way, it was a good effort.

OK... a fun story...

As always when I travel, I call the local bike shop to see if there are any local rides to join. I have ridden these rides down here (Cocoa Beach- we have been coming down here for 25 years as a family) and there are some good riders and good rides. The local shop tells me that there are some rides BUT... the big question comes out... "but, what kind of rider are you?"...

Here is the conversation...

Me: I ride hard... an experienced rider... the longer and harder, the better (we are talking cycling for those that have trashy thoughts)...

Him: Well we have a 25 miler that leaves the shop on Saturday... A good mix of riders...

Me: Anything longer on the weekends?

Him: There is also a 30 miler that goes off from the Sonic on Sunday...

Me: I saw on a blog that there was a ride that goes out of Palm Bay...

Him: Dude, are you a Cat 1? Those guys are wicked fast... and they go for 50-60 miles...

Me: No, I am not, but I might like to give that one a go... I mean, is the entire group nothing but Cat 1s?

Him: Look, man, those guys average over 30 miles an hour... let that one alone...

Me: Tell me where it is...

Him: Hey... Greg (I guess Greg is the other mechanic)... this guy on the phone is thinking he wants to go out with the Palm Bay guys...

Him (to me): Greg says that you do not want to go with those guys unless you are a Cat 1 racer... are you?

Me (reluctantly): No, but I am a 190 lb Cat 4 that does OK on hills and should be better in the flats...

Him: No, no, no... Cat 4? This is not the ride for you...

Me: Tell me where it starts...

Him: Palm Bay Hospital parking lot... at least you will be able to ask directions back... from the ambulance that picks you up...

The End...

OK... the guy was maybe not as witty as I made him out, but that play-by-play is pretty close. Needless to say, I can hardly wait until Saturday. I did intervals yesterday, but will take today off to prepare for tomorrow... no booze... no bad food...

I am racing tomorrow... and it will evidently be my first Cat 1 race...

Out of Here...

Finished the block... not as long as I wanted but it was still good. Put in 10.5 hours in 4 days... not amazing, but more than I have done since the injury in a 4 day stint.

Finished the block with a very hard hour effort last night. The newly installed ergomo tells me that I put out 318 Watts normalized for on hour... I dont think that is right still...

Either way, I am going to Florida for a week and a half... I will be training but probably not blogging...

Ride lots...

Keep Pushing...

Took Friday off... mostly due to time constraints and since the TT bike was not set up for riding. Went out Saturday and ripped off 65 miles or so. Mostly easy pace, but with a few big efforts and a few semi-attacks. It was cold and it rained the entire ride. My lower back tightened up around 55 miles in and I thought I had pulled a muscle. I stetched and could not put pressure on the pedals for around 5 miles and then it loosened back up... I babied it the rest of Saturday and got on some Motrin.

I woke up this morning and it felt great... I warmed up once we got to La Grange... agian, it felt great. I raced for 65 miles and it still felt great. Who knows! I was really glad to be racing considering the way it felt when it tightened down. I took 15th in the RR today and didnt really try to contest the final sprint... we had shed the rest of the riders throughout the route and on the last uphill section to the finish. Of course, there was also a wreck in the final stretch that took some folks out...

Legs feel really good and I am excited about finishing the final two days of this power block of training I am pushing through. I would like to put in a 3 hour ride on the next two days to complete 12 hours in 4 days. Tuesday will be a racing format for Tuesday Worlds. I wonder what will happen in that ride with shredded legs. I have a guess...

5x5s...

Painful is really all you can say about a 5 minute interval. At three minutes you think it has been six already and now you have two minutes left... and you remember how long your 1 minute intervals feel and realize that you have two times that left to put this interval in the past.

I started today on the same hill that I always do 5 minute intervals. It is really steep for the first 45 seconds of the route and then flattens to around 1-2% and holds it there the rest of the way. I start from a standstill at the base of the hill so that I can get as much time as possible out of the steep. In the past, I always finish the 5 minutes right at the gas station... right at the end of the road. I think there was one day where I had to stop 3 seconds early to keep from having to make the turn. It was a good day that day and maybe the wind was favorable...

Now, my ergomo sucks... we all know that by now and I cant trust anything it says (what a horrible existence)... I guess that it is registering 15-30 Watts high right now. I rip off the first interval at 385 Watts... way to high but I am not surprised... but wait! I get to the gas station, look down... I have 15 seconds left of the interval! There was a tail wind, but it is still the fastest I have ever climbed that hill and I am trying to let myself think that I am getting very strong. I know that is not really the case, but it does make me feel better. I repeated again and hit 380 Watts. The following three went downward quickly... I hit the first two too hard and really paid for it. I ended up with a 365W, a 355W, and a 340 Watt to finish the day. The normalized power for the total workout was 297 Watts.

It was a good workout and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a problem with the ergomo. On my best day this spring, I could only muster a 345 Watt effort (my fourth... I built up to that from 325 Watts that day). I know I was stronger then than I am now. No way I put out 35 Watts more today on two. The good news... I scheduled an appointment with the ergomo doctor today... All3Sports in Atlanta is the real deal... those guys really know ergomo and said that they would work me in on Monday... AWESOME!!!! The thoughts of no power for my entire vacation... I don't think I could relax...

I have a Plan...

Here is the plan for the short term future...

Monday- I took off
Tuesday- Got killed but put in some big efforts and a hard 2 hour ride
Wednesday- 1 Hr at hard tempo... borderline FTP
Thursday- 5x5 min at VO2 Max effort
Friday- hour long workout on TT bike- Tempo- Level 3
Saturday- 65 mile tempo- Level 3
Sunday- La Grange Road Race- 68 miles
Monday- Group ride- 2 hours- Tempo plus
Tuesday- Group ride- 3 hours- road race simulation

This long block of training will hopefully start to build my form for next month. I am going to hit it as hard as I can for as long as I can and see if I can break something free. It is time to decide if I will base build through the rest of the race season, or start racing now and not look back. I will be out of town for a couple of weeks after this block and will be riding group rides all the while in Florida. I hope to come back to Macon on form or getting close...

If I see August coming close, and I am still off form, I will realize that the best way to spend training time is to take off a few weeks and start ramping up the winter base a few months early. Maybe that will put me ahead of the game in spring... guarantee two peaks next season or maybe the elusive tri-peak season... who knows...

Another day... Another Theory...

Tuesday Worlds...

I really felt good last night even though it didn’t show. I don't like the position excuse, but I put out big efforts a couple of times when I didn't need to and it cost me. Generally, I got dropped because I am out of shape... or at least out of shape compared to my old teammates. A few things I realized last night...

My big gear power is definitely not what it used to be. There are times when someone will surge on the front and I feel as though I don’t have the horsepower to hold. That just doesn’t happen to me when I am in shape especially in the flats (I have pretty good power but high weight, therefore I seldom have trouble on flat roads) and that is where it is happening... in the flats… I don’t know what that is but I don’t like it… I think that the FTP testing really help me garner power throughout my entire stroke coming into this season. I think I lost a lot of that when I got hurt… I think my stroke changed a lot trying to compensate for my injury… bad stuff that may take the winter to fix …

I have a theory…

I wrecked at the end of March (29th)… on April 23rd, I, for the first time, said that I had a decent day on the bike. That is pretty much a month off. For the next month, I built my FTP up to 270 Watts… that is 40 Watts lower than where I was. Then I switched the ergomo and things have been haywire ever since… no way to count on any numbers. By the way, the BB shifted for sure and started creaking like it did on my old bike. Now the wattage has fallen way down… I really have got to work to get it over 300 Watts… I think it may actually be right now… if so, I was at 270 when I dropped last night… seems low really but we took it really easy on the way out and I dropped really quick… I will test soon...

UPDATE... I went out for a ride today at lunch. I did an offset prior to the ride and it dropped down 8 points... that brought my wattage right back up where it has been and put me into a 305 Watt hour effort today... I don't think this is right so my dilemma continues. Those of you who did not understand the albatross reference will hopefully understand it now....

My theory is this. Even though I like to think that I was only off the bike for 2 weeks, I was still on crutches when I got back on and could not put out any effort. Then, when I think that I was really only off the bike for 1 month, I look back and realize that at 1 month I was excited to be able to pedal without pain up to 300 Watts. Then when I think that I was really only off the bike for 2 months, I look back and realize that I still had done no true aerobic nor anaerobic work due to my limitations from the injury and high wattage efforts…

Said a different way, even while I have been on the bike “training” for the last two to three months since my injury, I have not been challenging my cardiovascular/respiratory systems at all. My legs have been rebuilding, but I have really been losing cardio fitness. How could I not? The vast system I built up through the winter and early spring has seen a 2-3 month layoff from the workload it had become accustomed to. Even two months after my injury, I was still could only work hard for two hours without drastic failure of all systems with fatigue.

So... what does this all mean... I think I have actually lost fitness (cardio/resp) over the last month and gained power… this may sound strange but I think it has happened. They met in the middle. Where I might could power through a painful stretch without HR and respiratory rate going crazy... only hip pain... now that my legs and hip feel better, I am left without any big power (which I really count on to race) and with no big engine or gas tank. Everything has been trained to mediocrity. Don't get me wrong... I can go out to any group ride and fool someone into thinking I can ride a bike... but I cant race and I cant race within my teammates, even... I can sit on, but who wants that!

Away from cycling...

My wife gave me an early Father's Day Present tonight. The below link is a slide show that she put together for me to remind me that I have a life away from cycling... just kidding. My wife is an amazing woman... she finds the time to take care of me and the kids, allows me to live this lifestyle of training and racing while she chases around babies, and all the while takes thousands of pictures and keeps up with her crazy life on her own blog. If anyone ever wants to see the other side of our lives with a three year old healthy daughter and an 8 month old son with Down Syndrome, my wife's blog is http://lifewithelizaandjack.blogspot.com/. It is an amazing story to read in print... she is an amazing person...

If you are not into watching family photos, you can at least watch to get a laugh at how chubby I was especially in the early photos. I was probably 30 lbs heavier than I am now and had already shed 15 lbs by the first of these pictures...


To Daddy - Happy Father's Day!!

Charts...

So I decided to take my best weekly normalized power output for every week this year and plot it versus time. I was curious what I would predict as my future 1 hour power at some future date if certain trends that established were continued throughout the year.

The arbitrary date I chose was July 1st, 2008. The chart to the right shows my max normalized power each week prior to my injury. The trendline shows that if I continued along the route I was on, by July 1st I would have an FTP around 327 Watts. While I recognize that my FTP development during the race season would not likely look like this trend, I wanted to start with this as a baseline. I don't really think it is that unrealistic. I had hit 317 Watts for 57 minutes in a race in late March. I think 10 more Watts would have been expected since I had not yet peaked according to my training schedule...

The chart to the left is data after the injury, but before I started feeling good. This is the same date as my ergomo swap from old bike to new bike. I wanted to view this one because I was curious what the trendline would look like across that time period and where it would take me. This trend has me hitting out on July 1 at around 312 Watts.

The last chart (below) shows all post injury data up to my latest download. This trendline predicts a raise in FTP to around 322 Watts by July 1st.

So, what does all this mean? Not that much really. The most interesting thing to me is that there is not a whole lot of difference between any of them. They predict a range from 312 W to 327 W and I would be happy to fall anywhere in that range. I mainly wanted to see where things could have been had I not gotten hurt. Maybe things are not as bad as I thought. I also wanted to see how crazy the trend looked when I take into account the data post bike switch over. I have had trouble believing in some of the ergomo data, but as of late I have started to think it is right. I think the trending shows that this might be true. The jumps and drops seem to match very well to the trend and this makes me feel better.

Anyway, it was nice to see it all in one place. I would like to think that I could drop 5-10 lbs in the next month and raise my FTP over 320 Watts. This would get my pump primed for the late season race and make me feel like all the winter hours were worthwhile.

5 Minutes of Pain

I did some 5 minute intervals today. I did 4 repeats on a long hill in Macon... it has a few false flats that make it hard to hold the wattage, but it works better than anything else I have found.

I averaged 340 Watts, 342 Watts, 333 Watts, and 330 Watts in the four intervals. This is very near where I was the last time I did these things in February (I think it was Feb). I was pleased with the effort, but recognized something very real from the workout...

I am not used to suffering. This winter, I did FTP and sprint workout all winter and then moved into 5 minute and 1 minute intervals. There was never a week that I did not have a really tough workout (mentally and physically). I now realize that for the last 8 weeks, I have been very satisfied sitting in and making excuses. The burn I felt today was different and woke me up to the weak outputs over the last few weeks. Mentally, I am using my injury as a scapegoat to keep from working over the edge...

I must keep these intervals going... even if they don't raise my threshold, they will raise my mental toughness and we all know that will make me faster than threshold...

So Many Thoughts... So little time...

Here is a quick run down of what is going on in my cycling world...

• My new bike is up and running. It is fast, corners on rails (good for a guy with a broken hip), looks incredible, is lighter than my old bike, and is the first bike I have ever owned that I can really be proud of.
• My current form makes me feel like I don't deserve the bike... but who does... besides Boonen and he is a coke-head...
• My ergomo has come back with some weird readings since the switch to the new bike... I got a freaky high reading in the Union City race for one. We are talking 297 Watts for 3 hours with a 1 hour max of 325 Watts. This is not likely... actually it is impossible. I calibrated it right before that ride... it was only my second time on the bike.
• My theory is that three things happened. 1) my leg got a lot better just prior to switching bikes. This makes a lot of sense if you look back through my blog... the first really good ride where my power came back was actually the day before I shot the albatross. 2) the ergomo BB must have "shifted" during the race and started measuring high. When I rode after that, I did a new offset and it has been correct since then. The offset is well stabilized and I think the numbers are more realistic. I will talk specifics on the numbers in the blog to follow. I did throw out that race from my data... surprisingly I hardly set any records with that race for my all time best power curve. I think I moved up my 1:30 a little and that was it... 3) I have been overcompensating with my left leg... yes, the bad leg. Maybe once it healed, I started using it more and have thrown my numbers off on the high side... long shot, but a theory all the same...
• Back to the leg/hip... no pain... at all... none... I can do no movement that will cause me pain. There is occasional tightness when it rains... but it never rains so who cares. I am 100% and am no longer limited by my leg.
• Regardless of my leg issues, I am not as fast as I was. I am guessing my new FTP to be around 302 Watts based on a few NP returns. At a fat arsed 187 lbs, I have some work to do to get back up to speed... such as lose 15 lbs and increase my FTP by 25 Watts or so...
• I cut off my Euro Mullet. I was growing it in support of Christian's European Campaign and told him so. I wanted to take a picture of it... it was beautiful... like Iban Mayo's from a few years ago, but with less curl and looking very much like a coon pelt... it is gone now and I am slower for it...

Charts to follow...

First Race Back...

I raced in Union City on Sunday. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision. My main goal for the 68 mile State Championship RR was to finish with the pack. The terrain was rolling with a couple of decent hills but nothing too tough. The whole team was up there with just me and Drew racing in the Cat 4/5 under 35 years old race. My longest ride since the injury has been a couple of metric centuries that I have done at a moderate to hard pace... could I go at race pace for longer than that at this point in my training... would my race pace even keep me on the back of the pack for 70 miles? These were the questions in my head going into Sunday...

I raced hard. I felt like I could throw up from the effort for most of the 2 hour and 50 minutes that we were on the course... but that did not keep me from attacking once and spending a fair amount of time on the front. At around 40 miles into the ride, I had convinced myself that I could win the race. By 60 miles in, I had realized that I may need a ride from the wheel truck back to my car. My legs went, but I never quit fighting and achieved my goal... I finished with the pack (which had dwindled from 75 folks to around 25-30 folks by the end) and no breakaways stayed out.

I felt very excited about this race but I was worked over. I was sore all day yesterday (the race was Sunday) and felt a little tired at Tuesday Worlds tonight. It felt great to be back with the team and back competing again, but it is strange to ride in a race that you don't think you have the chops to win. I hope that my goals will be different in a few weeks when we head to La Grange (don't let the "La" fool you... we are not talking about Italy)...