Racing in Macon...

Pinned back on a number this weekend and it felt great. We sponsored our first three stage weekend of bike racing in Macon, Georgia this weekend. There was a downtown prologue... a downtown crit (state championship no less), and a tough RR course in East Macon. A lot of hard work went into it and it came off really well. All the racers seem to have really enjoyed the races. I worked a corner during the prologue since we were a little short volunteers and ended up racing the crit and prologue.

My confidence was a little off going in... my legs have not been great, but I have been working hard lately. The crit was a blast. It was wide open and my legs were good. I worked in the top 5-7 guys all day and brought back a number of breaks so that Drew could have a chance at the State Championship. I knew he was catting up after this race, so I wanted to help him out if I could... especially with my shaky confidence. I didn't contest the sprint and finished midpack.

The RR was a sufferfest. Tough climbs and nonstop rollers and big heat. I figured that attrition alone would dwindle down the field and had serious doubts if I could hang with the front group. Turns out that I had great legs... the group fractured in half in the first 15 miles and dwindled down from there. I felt like I might throw up for the second half of the race, but hung in there. Drew broke away with three others after a fair setup effort by me. I then proceeded to gum up any chase efforts while Drew and the other two guys dropped the fourth. He won the race and I finished 11th out of a chase group (selection) of 12 or so. I was very pleased. You cannot race to win when you have no confidence and so I am glad to truly believe that I have the legs to win for the rest of this year.

I plan to step up the racing for the rest of the year and try to Cat up to 3 in the offseason...

Things I cant explain...

Much has happened since my last blog and most of it is not great from a cycling standpoint. I turned a 4 day vacation (anniversary trip around the first of April) into a week layoff the bike into a decision that I needed to start back running into a decision that I needed to start back swimming into a decision that I needed to start back doing triathlons into a realization that time off the bike along with running was making my cycling suck. That may not matter if I was really sold that I wanted to get back into triathlon, and my legs would certainly come around once they got used to running again, but I really didn't like sucking on the bike.

After having a very strange April and early May and getting my tail kicked on a few Tuesday night rides here in Macon, I have reconnected with the bike with a passion. Whatever reason I decided all the things I did, I am moving forward and while some has been lost, I have salvaged the season. I am training hard right now and am trying to get back into some kind of shape for the Macon race coming up middle of June.

I dumped the ergomo and got a powertap... that has been liberating. Come to find out, it was reading around 40 watts high on average and had other weird things going on that are not worth reviewing right now. They just cease to matter for the first time in a year and that feels good. Bad news... I trained with bogus numbers for a long time and it appears that they were not even relatively right... for instance I could easily maintain power going down a hill with the ergomo and I find that maintaining power downhill with the powertap is impossible. I remember it being like that with the ergomo before I moved it to my new bike and broke my hip. Anyway... enough...

I retested my FTP for a new starting point... wow... low...

30 minute power- 284 Watts

I think that I lost around 20-25 Watts with my hiatus in April (how stupid is that), but I think that can be rebuilt pretty quick. Most of my other measurables are close to where last year before the accident, so all is not lost.

Cycling Blog Turns Political Blog... only one... promise...

Yes this is a cycling blog, but it also seems to be my only avenue to vent publicly (however small the readership might be) on this issue...

It is hard for me not to react to Obama's comment last night on Jay Leno about the Special Olympics... my son has Down Syndrome and I am also an athlete and look forward to my son following in my footsteps. If it is not bad enough that I don't agree with most of what Obama is doing right now nor do I respect his abandonment of all pro-life programs and his celebration of all pro-choice campaigns, now he is actually making fun of the Special Olympics on national television. This is a third grade, school yard comment... it is really hard to believe that our commander in chief could say this at all... but especially in public... and on public television for all to see...

To cross-reference our brilliant president, here is an article written about a true athlete...

The top bowler for the Special Olympics looks forward to meeting President Barack Obama in an alley.

"He bowled a 129. I bowl a 300. I could beat that score easily," Michigan's Kolan McConiughey told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

The athletic-minded president made an offhand remark Thursday on "The Tonight Show" comparing his weak bowling to "the Special Olympics or something." He quickly apologized and told the Special Olympics chairman he wants to have some of its athletes visit the White House to bowl or play basketball.

McConiughey, who is mentally disabled, is just the bowler for the job. He's bowled five perfect games since 2005.

The 35-year-old McConiughey has been bowling since he was 8 or 9. His advice for Obama? Practice every day.

Thanks, Obama... thanks for invitation to come bowl with you at the White House... that makes it all better...

Albany Recap...

Great weekend in Albany... some weirdness, but generally a great weekend.

We were warming up in the cold and fog the morning of the prologue... the race route was not well barricaded and people were riding both ways in both lanes of the course. At some point, the racing started... Robert and some others were still on the course when a girl came barreling around the corner and hit him head-on... aerobars to aerobars... both ended up in the hospital and both ended up OK... but it was crazy to say the least...

Obviously, Robert’s wreck threw us all off, but I went ahead with my start time. I barely made it to the house in time and started the run. I paced it well and almost died at the line just in time for the final sprint. It took me an hour to get my wind back and feel normal. My time was slower than last year but with very difficult conditions (fog, moisture), but enough for 2nd place in our category. This is my first Cat 4 podium... I catted up a year ago after racing a few races the year before as a Cat 5... last season, I only had a few races before the broken hip incident. I was pretty stoked and what made it better, my mom, mom's friends (Chesh and DeHart), my wife and kids, and the Speils were all there to see me on the podium... talk about timing...

Crit

I had planned to stay in the pack and think about the sprint finish. I was convinced that I could win this race if I didn’t hurt myself too much before the end. The strategy was perfect and I knew it. BUT!!!!! I got in my head that I couldn’t let the 3rd place guy go anywhere… I knew he would be trying to take away my 2nd place overall, and I knew I would finish there overall because there was no way I would get dropped from the crit or the RR. Wrong! He attacked almost immediately and I jumped on his wheel. The guy was heavy, but had some major power and could corner really tight… I have no idea how he didn’t beat me in the TT to be honest… he was a beast from my perspective. He started yelling that we had a split and that we had to work together and I started pulling… I looked at my ergomo and quickly looked away… I was embarrassed to be pulling with that much power in a breakaway that I knew would fail that early in the race… but there I was. I don’t know what happened next… we got reeled back pretty quick, and I was in the red zone. I retreated back in the group to get myself together which worked well until they announced a prem and I went for it. I went pretty early and stayed out around a few corners and sprinted easily to take it. But… I blew completely to pieces. I remember Drew coming by me at least 5 mph faster than I was going and screaming at me to speed up. I sprinted onto the back and hung out there for a lot of laps. The guy in front of me let a gap form as he was getting dropped and I kept hoping he would bridge back up… the gap got wider… I tried to make it on the back and just didn’t have the legs… so I got dropped from the group and lost a half minute…

RR

Drew went in a breakaway from word go. I blocked for Drew for the first half. It was a thing of beauty… me and Davies screwing up any form of a chase for as long as we could. I fought like heck for perfect position in the sprint. I was second wheel coming up to 200 meters but the group was spread across the road a little. Everyone broke at the same time except for the guy in front of me. He decided to sit on the sprint. By the time I realized it, we were going 3 mph slower than anyone and people were zipping by us on both sides. Drew told me later that the guy was racing for third in the overall and just wanted to hold his position. I didn’t know that, but who knows if it could have made a difference. I was very disappointed afterwards, because I really thought I could win it and really had great position and it was really hard to get and hold at the end and I was able to do it… I took a lot of risks with absolutely no payout and that is what angered me. Anyway… I learned a lot and am still not sure how to do it better. I think we have got to get more than one guy on our team in the top 5-7 coming into any sprint… sure we don’t have a sprinter, but most of the guys racing with us are not sprinters either…

Race Week!

It has been a while since I have blogged (AGAIN!). So much has happened since my last note, that it is hard to figure out where to start... I think I will just ramble over the happenings of the last two months and then get to present and think about the race this weekend...

• Made it through the 5 minute interval stage of training... VO2 max intervals... without any major happening. They hurt... a lot... and that was good...
• Completed a few epic rides over the last 5-6 weeks... the Pine Mountain Challenge (130 mile ride to Pine Mountain and back). Got dropped on the way home, but salvaged the day with some hard efforts on the way in. I felt surprisingly good after 130 miles in the saddle and really felt like I could have gone a while longer. We also had our team camp in Dahlonega... no single ride was epic by itself, but three days in the mountains were epic when grouped together. I broke my shifter cable and was stuck with two gears to get through the long day in the mountains. It turned out to be a cadence workout that I would rather not talk about... we did the backside of hogpen... again, I would rather not talk about it. Suffice to say that I considered quiting cycling at the top... a 25 tooth easy gear on that side of hogpen is not a good idea...
• Thanks to these efforts and a steady diet of lunch rides, two-a-days when possible, and long, hard rides on Saturday and Sunday, I have built my CTL over 100 for the first time. It has pulled back a little since I started anaerobic intervals, but I was glad to hit that milestone that I had set for myself last year. Does CTL translate to winning races? Probably not, but watching that number keeps me riding my bike when others are sitting by the fire...
• I have been doing anaerobic intervals for a few weeks. I am on top of my training for the first time since winter started and I feel really great.
• I raced in Greenville, SC weekend before last. I did the Masters 35+ race and the Cat 4 race, back to back. This is a training series, but everyone shows up to test their legs. We were riding the 35+ race with a lot of higher category riders, but I think most of those guys were saving their legs for later in the day. I rode hard in the first race and dropped out half way though the second... legs were absolutely fried, but it was a great day and helped to build my race form.
• Albany is this weekend... I am very interested in placing well in this race, but it is still very difficult to know what my form is this year. Besides the injury from last year, my power meter cannot be trusted when comparing the numbers to last year. Maybe it is better not to know. Either way, I will know this weekend for sure and it will be great to be back.
• I finished out my set of Zipp 404s... they are really sweet and feel very fast on the road. I am trying to decide whether I will race them in crits...
• I have gotten my weight down to 176 lbs (low weigh in for last week) and am steady around 177 lbs throughout. This is 11 lbs down from year before last and 4-5 lbs down from my low last year. Every little bit counts...

More Ride Comparisons...

This off-season, more than last one, has had me concerned that I am not training properly. I have really been going it alone this time. Last year, I made it to a lot more of the Peach Peloton rides... rode the attack zones... long hours in the saddle. The hours have been the same this year, but the attack zones have not. I think things will work out, but it does not stop me from constantly comparing rides from last year versus this year during the same time period.

I was searching for a good comparison with the ride from yesterday. I knew that I had felt tired after this ride and therefore wondered if I had a similar effort last year at this time. I came across this ride (see table) from the middle of February last off season. It really didn't have anything to do with what I was looking for, but I couldn't help but to smile... what a difference a month makes. Less junk miles (I said this for you, Robert) this season... I have been focused on that this year... I only want to be in Active Recovery (AR) on Mondays (my off day). Endurance zone minutes are almost identical. Almost double the time in the Tempo zone and am higher in the Threshold zone also. That is where things go the other way... big time. A whopping 22 minutes anaerobic... and 19 minutes in the VO2 Max Zone.

Over the next month, my program will shift with a much heavier concentration on VO2 max and Anaerobic Zones. Months of holding back will finally be released and my NP will start to swing upward in a big way. I just hope it is not too late...

Saturday Tempofest...

I was not able to schedule a block of 5 hours to ride on Saturday this week, so I decided to split a total ride goal of 7 hours over the weekend into two equally times rides (3.5 hours each).

I had very, very good legs at the start of Saturday. My general goal thus far during the winter is to get in my key workouts each week (FTP, 5 min intervals, sprints, etc) and get in a long ride each week. The long ride distance is determined by how much work I have done during the week and is set at a distance (actually distance and intensity) that will slightly raise CTL (3-4 points) each week. If I am tired... I go a little shorter or take a day off during the week to rest and stay energized for the next workout. All other rides between the aforementioned are done at tempo pace... or as close as my legs will let me get to that pace. Most people agree that the most aerobic bang for the buck for the recovery cost is achieved at high L3... the sweet spot I mentioned earlier. On good days, I have done intervals where I ride at this power output for 10 minutes or so with a short break between... on really good days, I just ride at the sweet spot for as long as I can.

On Saturday, I had good legs and decided that I would ride sweet spot for my entire 3 hour ride. Did I think I could pull it off? No, but it sounded fun to try. After an hour and a half, I was dead where I wanted to be... NP was at sweet spot and AP was only off by 4 watts (lower, of course). I continued to do this and my legs continued to die a slow, long death. At two hours in, I could not really keep the wattage up without rest and by the end of the ride, I felt like I had been whipped. I was very tired after this ride and was shocked to see that my IF was only 0.83. That is not a shabby effort, but the way I felt, I was surprised to see it that low. Then I checked the AP... it was only 17 watts lower than my normalized. For that type of a ride, I could not find another ride on record with that high of an average power... so, I guess it was pretty good. Today, the legs were fried until I put out a 4 min all out effort and then they opened up and I was able to muster a 0.75 IF ride... pretty please with that I guess.

CTL is at 94.5... highest ever on record...