With no race and a three-day weekend, my coach decided to have me do something a little radical this weekend.
I've
mentioned that my foundation training was not what I had hoped for and
that I've been seeing a drop in many indicators of fitness throughout
the spring racing season. The common ingredient there is a lack of
aerobic fitness.
His goal was to completely tax my aerobic energy systems beyond anything I've ever experienced trying to build them back up.
Saturday
was the longest day I've ever spent on the bike, both in terms of time
and in distance: 103 miles in 5 hours, 20 minutes. It was not just
several hours at a steady pace. I did two intervals of an hour each at a
high tempo pace. I did 6 one-minute sprints uphill. And I did 3
five-minute VO2 efforts. By the end, I was totally cooked.
Sunday
was another pretty long day: 3 hours, 40 minutes and 65 miles. It was
at an easy pace with no major efforts. It was just a long endurace ride.
Monday
(today) was back to the higher intensity. It was a two hour ride with 4
threshold intervals of 10 minutes each. With the focused intervals,
Monday is on the trainer, even though it's a nice day out. To be honest,
it took all I had to do these. I was so tired and my legs were so sore,
I just wanted to take the day off and lay around. But I dug in and did
it... and now I'm glad it's over!
It was a grand total
of 11 hours of riding in 3 days. I average 11 hours on a good WEEK of
training. Doing that much in 3 days really pushed me to my limits. It
also gave new meaning to the expression "long weekend".
Whether this weekend's plan turns out to be insanity or brilliance remains to be seen :-)
Monday, May 26, 2014
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Perfect Second
Today is one of those days when everything went right. I am happy with my training the last few weeks. I'm well rested, well fed, and my allergies are no longer acting up. I got in a good recon of the course, a good pacing plan, a good night's sleep, and a good warmup.
As I usually do for longer courses, I divided the course into quarters. The first quarter was all flat or uphill, including a very sharp turn. The middle two quarters were rolling hills, some of them pretty steep. The last quarter had a steep descent into a sharp turn, a steep climb right after the turn, and then flat or downhill for a couple miles (with a huge crater to avoid in the road) before the final climb to the finish. I hit the finish line thinking I'd done everything right and might have won... then I realized that Anthony was just behind me at the finish. He started 30 seconds behind me.
Some days the competition is just better.
The funny thing is, I'm not upset. You've all seen my "second per mile rule." If the difference between two riders is a second or more per mile, then the difference was probably fitness, not just some mistake on the course. Over an 11.2 mile course, Anthony beat me by 2.5 seconds per mile today.
It bugged me a lot more last time when he beat me by 4 seconds over 9.5 miles.
I hit my speed and power targets. It wasn't enough to win today but I'm really proud of the result.
I get two more weeks of training before my next race: the Philly TT. It's one of my favorite events and this one is not part of the series, so it will be against a totally different set of competitors.
What I did right:
Planning and execution
What could have been better:
Nothing that I could fix today
The Numbers:
Distance: 11.2 miles
Time: 27:15
Speed: 24.7 mph
Avg Power: 263 watts (283 normalized)
Avg Heart Rate: 165 bpm
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Breather
After six weeks in a row of racing, I'm happy to say that there were no races this weekend.
There was supposed to be an 18 mile TT on a flat course today, but it was canceled due to major construction on the road. I'm not complaining.
I really love racing. I love the excitement of the start line, the pressure to do my best during the race, those moment of suspense afterward waiting to find out how I did, and the great competition that Anthony and I have going on this year... but I really needed the break. Doing it every weekend is a little more than I would prefer. It feels like I have not had a day off since March.
For the last six weeks, my life has been a frenzy of training, resting, equipment maintenance, packing, traveling, and unpacking. It's really nice to have a weekend to stay home and not worry about any of that. In fact, both days of the weekend were unstructured training and I just rode for fun.
For the next six weeks, I have a race every other weekend and then get a month of no races at all. I'm kind of excited since I knew that I had some weaknesses in my training at the start of the season and I've been dying to work on them. With a little more time between races, I have time to actually train instead of just maintaining where I was.
With the series already half over, I'm in second place at 85 points. Anthony is in the lead with 91 points. What makes it more interesting is that the series will drop our lowest scores at the end of the year. Both of our lowest scores were at the High Point Hill Climb, where he got 6 points and I got 0. Dropping those scores ties us both at 85 points! He still has the advantage and gets to start behind me. I'll really need to work to take that way. We both really want to win the series and neither of us is giving an inch. I hope the second half is just as fun as the first!
There was supposed to be an 18 mile TT on a flat course today, but it was canceled due to major construction on the road. I'm not complaining.
I really love racing. I love the excitement of the start line, the pressure to do my best during the race, those moment of suspense afterward waiting to find out how I did, and the great competition that Anthony and I have going on this year... but I really needed the break. Doing it every weekend is a little more than I would prefer. It feels like I have not had a day off since March.
For the last six weeks, my life has been a frenzy of training, resting, equipment maintenance, packing, traveling, and unpacking. It's really nice to have a weekend to stay home and not worry about any of that. In fact, both days of the weekend were unstructured training and I just rode for fun.
For the next six weeks, I have a race every other weekend and then get a month of no races at all. I'm kind of excited since I knew that I had some weaknesses in my training at the start of the season and I've been dying to work on them. With a little more time between races, I have time to actually train instead of just maintaining where I was.
With the series already half over, I'm in second place at 85 points. Anthony is in the lead with 91 points. What makes it more interesting is that the series will drop our lowest scores at the end of the year. Both of our lowest scores were at the High Point Hill Climb, where he got 6 points and I got 0. Dropping those scores ties us both at 85 points! He still has the advantage and gets to start behind me. I'll really need to work to take that way. We both really want to win the series and neither of us is giving an inch. I hope the second half is just as fun as the first!
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Certainly Better Than Last Week
After last week, almost anything is an improvement... but today was still not quite what I wanted.
Last year I obsessed over this course to the point that it's still seared into my memory. I knew where and how long the climbs were, how to take the turns, and when I had to anticipate major shifts. I drove the course last night just to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. The only new thing was a short area of really messed up pavement. The rough winter strikes again.
I was confident in my strategy going in, but I knew the results would depend on my lungs more than anything.
Last week I had a terrible day on the bike. After coughing up a lung that whole day and a lot this week, I went to the doctor and found that my seasonal allergies were much worse this year. He put me on a new medication, which is slowly helping but I still can't breathe quite normally.
On Sunday I still felt awful and couldn't even finish my planned workout. I took this as an easy week so my body could start to piece itself back together. That helped a lot, but I still didn't feel 100% this morning and it showed in my performance today.
I think the race went reasonably well, with no major mistakes and no real issues. My start was strong. I held my position pretty well. I kept the power on the downhills and paced the climbs the way I wanted. I just missed all my power and time targets by a little bit.
In comparison to last year, I averaged 20 watts less (15 watts less normalized). Even though my position was much better and I have better equipment than last year, I was still 11 seconds slower. The download showed that I was pretty consistently putting out less power over the whole course. I didn't lose it in any one stretch of road.
That's even more frustrating since Anthony beat me by 4 seconds. Even more surprising, someone else finished in between us, 2 seconds behind him. I finished in 3rd place.
That puts me second in the series by 6 points. It will take some work if I want to win. Even though I'm not in the lead anymore, I'm having a lot of fun and I'm not giving up!
I guess it's finally time to come clean. I've mentioned it a few times but it's time to say it plainly: my performance numbers have not been what they were last year. In general, I'm running 10 to 15 watts lower in almost every race and workout. I was running behind at the start of racing season and I've been just barely hanging on to the fitness I had then.
I realized a few mistakes that I'd made in planning my training right before the start of the season. I think now I'm paying the price for not riding outside as much, especially not doing any climbing. Last year I was doing a lot of aggressive climbing and this year I'm not climbing at all.
I'm still having a great year and cannot complain too much. I've already had 4 podium finishes, including 2 wins, out of 6 races. It's a year to be proud of, even if it's not quite the performance that I wanted.
Six weeks of racing in a row was a big mental and physical strain. The next three races are every other week and I'm looking forward to having a little more breathing room between races.
What I did right:
Called the doctor when I didn't feel right (like most people, I can be stubborn about that)
Planned out the course and my pacing
Rested up this week
What could have been better:
Nothing that I could fix today
The Numbers:
Distance: 9.7 miles
Time: 23:43 (last year was 23:32)
Speed: 24.5 mph
Avg Power: 260 watts (290 normalized) (last year was 280 avg and 305 NP)
Avg Heart Rate: 164 bpm
Last year I obsessed over this course to the point that it's still seared into my memory. I knew where and how long the climbs were, how to take the turns, and when I had to anticipate major shifts. I drove the course last night just to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. The only new thing was a short area of really messed up pavement. The rough winter strikes again.
I was confident in my strategy going in, but I knew the results would depend on my lungs more than anything.
Last week I had a terrible day on the bike. After coughing up a lung that whole day and a lot this week, I went to the doctor and found that my seasonal allergies were much worse this year. He put me on a new medication, which is slowly helping but I still can't breathe quite normally.
On Sunday I still felt awful and couldn't even finish my planned workout. I took this as an easy week so my body could start to piece itself back together. That helped a lot, but I still didn't feel 100% this morning and it showed in my performance today.
I think the race went reasonably well, with no major mistakes and no real issues. My start was strong. I held my position pretty well. I kept the power on the downhills and paced the climbs the way I wanted. I just missed all my power and time targets by a little bit.
In comparison to last year, I averaged 20 watts less (15 watts less normalized). Even though my position was much better and I have better equipment than last year, I was still 11 seconds slower. The download showed that I was pretty consistently putting out less power over the whole course. I didn't lose it in any one stretch of road.
That's even more frustrating since Anthony beat me by 4 seconds. Even more surprising, someone else finished in between us, 2 seconds behind him. I finished in 3rd place.
That puts me second in the series by 6 points. It will take some work if I want to win. Even though I'm not in the lead anymore, I'm having a lot of fun and I'm not giving up!
I guess it's finally time to come clean. I've mentioned it a few times but it's time to say it plainly: my performance numbers have not been what they were last year. In general, I'm running 10 to 15 watts lower in almost every race and workout. I was running behind at the start of racing season and I've been just barely hanging on to the fitness I had then.
I realized a few mistakes that I'd made in planning my training right before the start of the season. I think now I'm paying the price for not riding outside as much, especially not doing any climbing. Last year I was doing a lot of aggressive climbing and this year I'm not climbing at all.
I'm still having a great year and cannot complain too much. I've already had 4 podium finishes, including 2 wins, out of 6 races. It's a year to be proud of, even if it's not quite the performance that I wanted.
Six weeks of racing in a row was a big mental and physical strain. The next three races are every other week and I'm looking forward to having a little more breathing room between races.
What I did right:
Called the doctor when I didn't feel right (like most people, I can be stubborn about that)
Planned out the course and my pacing
Rested up this week
What could have been better:
Nothing that I could fix today
The Numbers:
Distance: 9.7 miles
Time: 23:43 (last year was 23:32)
Speed: 24.5 mph
Avg Power: 260 watts (290 normalized) (last year was 280 avg and 305 NP)
Avg Heart Rate: 164 bpm
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