256 holds a special significance in the computer world. It's the number of possibilities in one byte of information, it's a common multiple for memory, and it's just 2 to the 8th power.
It's also my average wattage today, 4 watts better than my previous best. I had no help at all. I was alone from the very start, leaving the bank of riders I was in right from the start, so I did 1:42:12 completely alone. I totally buried myself to do it.
My average wattage fluctuated between 255 and 257 watts for the last hour or so. I tried as hard as I could to keep my average in that range. I really wanted 256 for an average. The last 10 minutes, I could barely hang on. I couldn't really think straight, I couldn't see, and I couldn't speak. I was just pedaling as hard as I could. I kept a mental countdown running in my head as I watched my distance covered number. It was a 38.2 mile course. It was actually the same Stage 2 course we used for the Tour de Breakaway three weeks ago. It was a lot easier with people to draft. I was 5 minutes slower today than I was then but I worked a lot harder for it. I averaged 246 watts that day.
When I was done, the first thing I did was cough for about 10 minutes straight. Once my heart rate came down a little bit (from 178 BPM) and I could breathe again, I went over to the other bank to see how they did. I beat them by 3 minutes.
Awesome. That made my day.
I got back on the bike and kept cooling down. My legs were killing me, I kept coughing every few minutes, and my heart rate took forever to come down to my normal range. I didn't care. I had my best day ever on the trainer.
Let's look at a couple numbers. A "good" off season is one where your power increases by about 10%. This year, from October to the present, I've increased my power for these long courses from 205 watts to 256 watts. That's almost a 25% improvement. With the rapid rate of improvement I've seen, I'm wondering if I could hit 260 or 265 watts in the remaining RPM classes. It would be really great if I could. It would be an amazing foundation to start the serious speed work on in the spring.
Oh yeah, and sitting around with a cold all week and eating like crazy, I'm up a pound to 176.
