One Sick Individual

I knew I was coming down with something last weekend when I struggled with my field test. By Tuesday, I was coughing enough that I only completed 1 1/2 of my scheduled 4 VO2max intervals. By Thursday, I was dizzy enough to go home from work early. I went home, took a couple sleeping pills to make sure I stayed unconscious, and went to bed. (At some point I posted some pictures to Facebook that night, but have no recollection of doing it!)

Friday I woke up and felt terrible, still coughing like crazy and had a hard time concentrating. I emailed my coworkers that I wouldn't be in and went back to bed for most of the day.

A smart person would have skipped riding today. I never claimed to be smart. I woke up and didn't feel too bad (after sleeping about 20 hours in the last day and a half) so I figured I'd go into the shop and do an easy ride.

As I was warming up, I could tell I was a little off. My body heat was WAY high and I was uncomfortably warm the entire time. I managed to stay with Todd and Jason for about the first 30 minutes, then I dropped off and rode the rest of the course alone. I stayed ahead of Andy and Kacy, who were about a mile behind me most of the time. Kacy has also been sick and been off the bike for about 3 weeks.

It was an interesting day since I couldn't spin over 90 RPM for the life of me. My aerobic system just wasn't cooperating. I tended to stay about 85 RPM, making my leg muscle do a little more work than normal.

I finished the course with a stunning average of 242 watts. That's a decent wattage for any day, let alone one where I don't really remember much of it because I still don't have a lot of focus. Once I was done, I was coughing really badly and all my teammates were giving me loads of grief for not staying in bed.

They're right. I probably should have stayed in bed all day, since now I'm coughing even more and can have that "warm" feeling that usually means I have a fever.

I need to be better for next weekend. After waiting for months, I finally decided to get my next tattoo: it will be the same style as much current one and will be on my right shoulder/upper arm. I called Mony the other day and made the appointment. I don't want to be coughing while he's working!

So now, maybe 18 more hours of sleep and I'll be ready to ride tomorrow ;-)

ADDENDUM: Uhhh..... huh. Wow. I just downloaded my power meter information. I was messing around while I was warming up and tried to do a couple sprints. I just spotted a number I've never seen before: 5 seconds at 1015 watts, with an instantaneous maximum of 1096 watts. I don't know how the hell I did that kind of power, but the numbers are there (and I thought I saw it on screen, but it could have been a delusion). My target for March 1 was 1000 watts for 5 seconds, so I guess I need to increase the goal a little.

Not a fluke

Sometimes you have a really good day on the bike and you wonder if it was just one day.

Today's RPM was the Iron Man Switzerland course, a pretty painful 37-mile course with 3 climbs between 6.6 and 7.7%, each one about 5 minutes long. Ouch.

Four of us gunned it from the beginning. It was Matt, Pete, Ted, and I. We were pushing the pace pretty hard. Pete dropped off after about a half hour. It's his first season with the team and still building his strength, but he's doing pretty well so far.

On the first climb, Ted and I gunned it a little, dropping Matt. We joked about dropping him, but we slowed down a bit and he got back on. On the first major climb, Matt and I dropped Ted. By the summit, we had over 1000 feet on him. On the descent and flat after, I found something: Matt didn't mind drafting but wouldn't help pull. I debated for a second: could I drag Matt along and still keep Ted off? Ted is a great time trialist and could probably pull me back. So I waited. I slowed to to about 17 mph so Ted could catch back on (he was doing a out 21 mph).

Once he was back on, the three of us worked pretty hard together. Ted called out the rotation, making sure each of us took a pull. We stayed together over the next couple climbs and descents. We just had the 6 miles of flat road until the finish.

With about five miles to go, I was just finishing my 2-minute pull. I was debating how long to wait before making a move and this seemed like a good time. Besides, a song I really liked came on my iPod just then. So I gunned it, hitting about 750 watts. I jumped out of the saddle and gritted my teeth. I watched as I pulled away from Matt, as he slipped out of my draft. Ted shot past him and was on me pretty quickly. After a minute I slowed down a touch and Ted took over. We kept the pace pretty high. I was doing about 300 watts when I was pulling and about 220 in Ted' draft.

I took a really long pull the last couple miles. I wanted to get my average wattage up. It was at 251 watts and I really wanted to get it up to meet or beat my old record. I ran out of road.... Ted sprinted by me in the last half mile and I just rode in at the same speed. I finished with an average of 252 watts, tying my record from last week. Matt came in about a minute behind us (I think, I was pretty beat and not paying much attention).

I was thrilled. To push myself so hard in the TT test yesterday and still deliver this kind of performance today was more than I could hope for. Especially since I'm still coughing and feel a little run down.

This week I'll be doing VO2max intervals and threshold intervals, so I'll probably be a little more tired by next weekend. Hopefully my body adjusts to the new higher intensity!

Starting to sound like a broken record

I wasn't really thinking about it and forgot to sign up in advance for the RPM class this week. With some 40" of snow this week, not too many people are riding outside and the class filled up pretty quickly.

Since I was going to be riding the trainer at home, I dug through my courses to find something kind of punishing but still kind of fun. I decided on my old favorite: The Carmichael Training Systems Field Test.

Years ago, when I was still skating, I worked with a great coach at Carmichael Training Systems named Josh Seldman. I always look back fondly on the days when he was my coach. He really got some great results out of me. One of the methods that he (and CTS) used was a test every 8 weeks or so to test my fitness: a 3 mile time trial. It could be done outdoors or on my CompuTrainer. It's long enough to get some good data from and ideally I would do two of them to see how well I could maintain the speed on the second one.

Today I did one, but oh what a one I did.

I warmed up really well. I wasn't feeling great since I was out late last night and have a bit of a cough coming on. I debated doing it at all, but a couple of hard efforts in the warmup felt OK so I decided to go for it.

Time trials are always hard. A 3-mile one is so short that you have to go really really hard in order to do well. From the power numbers I've been seeing lately, I was guessing that I would be able to average about 300 watts or so. That's a lot of power and was going to take a major effort.

I hit the Start button on the trainer, watched the countdown, then gave it everything I had. I was amazed at how quickly I zoned out. I was pedaling a steady 90 to 95 RPM, my head slightly moving side to side with each pedal stroke, and my breathing labored but controlled. I don't remember much of the time trial really, other than looking over to see 2.96 miles on the computer. I was almost done. 2.97....2.98... 2.99... 3.00. Whew! Done!

I cooled down, then started messing with the laptop and realized that the CompuTrainer software hadn't recorded the effort. I hate that software when it does that. At least I remembered my time and average power.

I rebooted the laptop to get to Mac OS, opened my training log, and went to enter my time and power in the log with all my past tests.... what the hell? No, that can't be right... oh my God, it is. It's a new record.

Today I did 3 miles in 7:11.7 at an average 315 watts and 25.01 mph. I was just excited that it was over 25 mph. My previous best on the trainer, set in November 2004, was 7:15.8 (I didn't track my power back then).

I used to fight for weeks to take off a fraction of a second from my 3 field test times. I sliced off 4 seconds. To give you an idea, 4 seconds at that speed means that if I'd done this on the open road, I'd have beaten the old record by 150 feet.

I'm really excited.... and now I'm going to go lay down. That was hard!

Oh, and I'm still 175 pounds.

One easy day and one record breaking day

Yesterday's RPM was pretty easy. We got about a foot of snow overnight the day before, so it was a little smaller group than usual. We didn't go that hard, with Todd, Glenn, and I rolling along at a moderate pace. Todd got a flat about an hour in and Glenn decided to try and drop me. He hit 27 mph on a 2% climb. I clawed my way back onto his wheel. He tried it again. I pulled him back again. I was not letting him get away.

We took it easy all the way to the finish line. I tried to make a move with 2 miles to go, but Glenn shot by me and beat me by about 20 seconds. Did I mention he's a Cat 2 rider? I'd fully expect him to smoke me :-)

Today was another story. We had a really strong group, with Tyler, Charlie, Mike, Ted, and I from QCW and a few new guys who I didn't get to meet.

Very quickly, Charlie, Tyler, and Mike were off the front. Ted and I, along with one new guy named Rob, formed the chase pack. About 30 minutes or so in, Mike dropped back from the lead group to our group. We had a pretty solid rotation. It felt like Ted and I were doing most of the work, but Rob and Mike were definitely contributing as well. We had a pretty good rhythm going and Ted and I worked really well together.

The last half mile of this course is a really brutal climb, reaching 7.9%. Just before it, Mike took off and quickly had 150 feet on us. I tried to bring him back had him down to 70 feet, but I just couldn't bring him back. When the course flattened out right before the finish, Ted came by me and I couldn't hold on to him. In the end, Mike beat me by 15 seconds and Ted beat me by 8 seconds. My finish time was 1:39:52.

The really great surprise was my average wattage: 252 watts. That was my best average wattage for any RPM class (ever, including when I was racing before I got fat). My previous best on this course was 242 watts in early January. I've never held that kind of wattage in my life. Based on that and some other analysis I've seen on the PowerTap lately, I'd guess my functional threshold is somewhere around 275 watts, something I never imagined I'd see when I started my quest to lose weight last May (hard to believe that was 8 1/2 months ago).

With just 8 weeks to go until the start of racing season, I'll be doing more threshold and VO2 max work now, so now I get to find out how my body handles the higher intensity. I'll be spending a lot of time working in the 330 watt range.... my legs are aching already...

Stage 3: Hanging on for dear life

Today was the hill stage: 3 major climbs ranging from 4% to 11.5%, each one about 4 to 5 miles in length, followed by a descent and then the next climb.

My strategy today was to hang on and try to survive. Luckily, the group I was with worked together for the first 29 of today's 31 miles. With just under 2 miles to go, the Shankopotamus made a move. He took off like a rocket, leaving all of us in his wake. Darren and Harper came in a little behind him, then me, then Melanie, then Kevin and then John.

It was a brutal day and much of it was a blur. My legs hurt quite a bit and I'm planning to take it as easy as I can tonight and get an easy recovery ride in the morning to help my legs heal up.

This week I'm going to get back in the gym to help get my weight loss moving again. Today's stage reminded me of how much I really need to burn off that last 8 to 10 pounds before racing season really kicks into high gear.

Thanks to Joe Wentzell and all the folks who made this great event happen!

Stage 2: That's more like it

Today I felt a lot better. I felt good when I woke up, I felt good warming up, and I felt good in the race.

My strategy was simple. I knew that in the bank of 8 trainers, we'd probably break into two groups. My goal was to stay with the stronger group as long as possible (knowing they would probably drop me at some point) and hopefully I'd be able to stay ahead of the second group.

The course was pretty flat, with only up to a 3.5% climb. It had a lot of shallow climbs that led to a long descent. It totaled 38.2 miles.

The pack started FAST, averaging almost 22 mph for the first hour. As the clock ticked over, I saw my average for the first hour was 250 watts. I was really happy. Charlie Z was awesome about making sure we constantly rotated, with each of us taking 30 second pulls. Just as we neared the top of the major climb, the group surged and I was off the back. I had about a 2 mile lead over the second group and I as facing 16 miles alone.

As I watched the faster group's lead grow, I fought to keep my lead over the next group steady. My average wattage dropped a little bit, but it was still going strong. I held about 242 watts the remainder of the time I was alone.

I hit the finish line about 7 minutes behind the leading group and still 2 miles over the next group. My strategy worked.

My average wattage was 246 watts, a tie for my best ever, but the time was 1:47:05. My previous record at that power was 10 minutes shorter.

It was enough to move me from 17th to 12th in the overall standings.

Tomorrow will be ugly. It has climbs as steep as 11% and I am not a great climber. There are a couple great climbers in the group, so my sights will be picking off a few non-climbers so I can move into the top 10. I'll need to make up about 6 minutes to pull that off...

Stage 1: TT

The Tour de Breakaway started today, a 3-day CompuTrainer stage race.

It isn't off to a good start for me, mostly because I was stupid. I went out every night this week and drank when I should have been home riding the bike (easy with a few sprints and threshold efforts, just to sharpen up for the race). I probably shouldn't have used my time trial bike for this race, but I really wanted to try. Finally, I started WAY too hard. Two minutes in, I was averaging 400 watts. For the next 14 minutes, I hemorrhaged time and power. I finished with an average of 275 watts in 16:47. It's certainly not bad, but it's not as good as I wanted.

The only highlight was what my friend & teammate Kacy told me. Her major goal was to beat me. Kacy is an amazing cyclist and to hear that from her really made my day. She met her goal, and finished in 16:34.

Here's a quick video of the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaAtdr-5ua8

Time to Hammer Down

Starting tomorrow, I'll be racing on the Computrainer for 3 days in a row. It will be my first "stage race", and more importantly, the first race I've done since 2007 where I thought maybe I could see some decent results. I did a couple races last year, but with the fitness I had, I didn't expect anything more than doing well against myself. This time, I can actually put up a little bit of a fight.

I know, it's not a crit or anything, but it's a reason to go harder than I've gone in a long time for 3 days in a row.

For more info on the event: http://www.bikereg.com/events/Register.asp?EventID=9937

The event is being put on by our awesome sponsors, Breakaway Bikes: http://breakawaybikes.com/

Test Week

Training the week before a major race is always dicey. It's too late to make any changes, it's too late to lose weight, it probably even too late to change any equipment. So you really hope like crazy that you do well.

I think the last 7 days represented the best cycling performance of my entire life.

On Tuesday, I took a stab at the CompuTrainer 10K time trial course. My previous best time was 16:24 at 281 watts. This time, I did it in 15:54 at 303 watts. My best 10K TT ever.

On Wednesday, I did a couple sprints to see what I had. I hit a 5 second max of 980 watts. My previous best was 945 watts. During that 5 seconds, I hit a max of 1009 watts. My previous max was 998 watts. My best 5 second and instantaneous max ever.

Saturday was the classic long RPM class. We did the Waimea Waimea course, which is essentially a 38-mile out-and-back course with a fast descent in the beginning, a long climb in the middle, and a mean climb at the end. I was in a strong 3-man breakaway. One guy dropped off from the group and another had to stop so he could open the store, leaving me alone. I had to push the pace alone for the last 45 minutes. I ended up beating the strongest rider in the other bay by just 12 seconds.

Today was the real clincher. We did another 38 mile course, Windach. It's a rolling undulating course with no major climbs or descents, but a couple long 0.6% climbs or 0.6% descents. I gunned it from the start, trying to see what I could do. I rode 38 miles alone. I watched the guys behind me closely, but held them to about a 3300 foot lead for almost the entire day. In the end, I averaged 246 watts, a new all time best for me.

I'm as ready as I've ever been for a race. Next weekend is the 120K Tour de Breakaway, which is a 3-day CompuTrainer race that we are doing as a fundraiser for our Juniors team. I may not be under 170 pounds for my 36th birthday like I wanted (I'm still 173) but at least my power output is the best it's ever been!

Second verse, same as the first verse. Only harder.

Yesterday's RPM class was pretty rough. It was the Richter course, which has a nasty 45-minute climb in the beginning and a long descent with a few sneaky climbs mixed in. I took off in an early breakaway with Bill. He dropped me on a long descent about half way through the course, so I and finished second in my group (alone), with a pretty strong finishing time of 1:31:15 and an average of 232 watts.

I was really excited with it since the last time I did that course just four weeks ago, I averaged 216 watts. That's a huge improvement for that amount of time. I'm kicking myself for not having the finishing time from the last one for comparison.

I went home.... and managed to slide downhill all day. By early afternoon my legs were aching like crazy. By early evening, I had a bad headache. About 7:30, I was violently ill and spent the next two hours lying on my bathroom floor.

I crawled into bed and passed out at some point. Then at 6:30 this morning my alarm went off. I forgot I had signed up for RPM again today. I debated staying in bed but I figured I may as well get up and go.

I didn't feel too bad eating breakfast and driving into the city. I got there and felt this sense of dread as I looked some of the other guys in the class. Joe Wentzell, Ted Slack, Keith Robinson, and Glenn Krotik. All people who could smoke me any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And today is Sunday.

It started with Glenn taking off with Ted and me hot on his heels. Joe seemed to be taking it easy. For about a half hour, it was Glenn, Ted, and me pushing the pace. I tried taking a couple pulls, but with those two around I was definitely the weakest in the group. We put a mile or so between us and Joe. Then Ted got a flat tire. He was out for a few minutes fixing it, then got back on and started chasing.

With just Glenn and I, I was worried. I figured Glenn would drop me any time he wanted. After about 20 minutes, he got a flat. He was out for several minutes, then got back on and started chasing. I wasn't long before he was in a group with Ted and Keith. Now I was alone in the lead with Joe Wentzell chasing me. I had about a half mile lead. I didn't think I could hold him off forever but I was not going to give up easily. I was at about 22 miles and it was a 37.33 mile course. I figured if I could hold him off until I had 10 miles to go (27.33 miles completed), I'd be happy. I carefully watched his speed and kept mine as close as I could.

I saw that my average power so far was 238 watts. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could put in enough effort to increase that to 245 for the whole ride. It would mean riding at 270 watts or so for the remainder of the ride. I wasn't sure I had that much left in me and if I cracked, I probably wouldn't recover but I figured it would be worth the gamble. Besides, there's no shame in losing to Joe if I failed.

I started to notice a pattern. I pulled away from Joe on every hill. He pulled back some distance on every descent. There was a lot of descending to go, then an 8-mile flat stretch to finish. This is not good. To add to it, I was running low on fluids and kept thinking about getting off the bike grabbing a drink out of my bag.

I passed the 27.33 mark and still hadn't been caught. I thought maybe if I could get to 30 miles without being caught, I'd be happy. Then I passed the 30 mile mark without Joe catching me. At one point, Joe got within 400 feet. I really thought he had me.... then I started to pull away again.

When we hit the final flat section, I settled into a rhythm, I had 1400 feet on Joe and 3 miles on the chase group (who was on the long descent and gaining fast). All I had to do was not crack. I still wanted 245 watts average and had about 242 watts so far. It was going to be close.

Once my lead over Joe hit a half mile, I hopped off the bike, ran over to my bag, and grabbed another water bottle and got back on. I lost about 800 feet of my lead.

Then Joe sat up and started cooling down. It was just me.

With only a half mile to go, the computer ticked from 244 to 245 watts. I had it. And that's not all I had. I still had a 2-mile lead on the chase group. I had the average power I wanted (which was 13 watts higher than yesterday) and I won the group. I couldn't believe it.

Even considering the two flat tires of my competition, holding 245 watts for 1:46:25 is a really good performance.

It's hard to believe that 16 hours ago I was laying on the floor barely able to get up!