ridethecliche

GA. you're going to kill it next weekend.

Great to see your progress so far!

echappist

Eff. Knee is still hurting. I'm sure racing in 40 degree rain didn't help.

Dear knee, please get well soon. I need to build up base for long-ass road races in the summer.

rbart4506

3 hours on the bike yesterday with my wife...Light tempo with some town sign sprints thrown in....

Finished off with a stop at the local cafe for a nice Americano before we trudged on home...

Fun day...

Looks wet this week, might have to ditch the bike and start working on the ark....Hope this is not a sign of what the summer is going to be like...

ridethecliche

I recently learned why americanos have been named as such.

It was funny.

TheKillerPenguin

Is it because we like our coffee to taste watered down?

Please tell me that's the answer.

echappist

yep. The GI's in WW-II liked to have a ton of the dilute stuff over the more concentrated stuff.

TheKillerPenguin

Ahh. Oof.

ridethecliche

They'd order espresso with water. So they started referring to the drink as an americano. Joe is slang for coffee because us GI's in the war were called Joe's.

Here's an awesome page about everything coffee related that is neat: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/coffee

Or most everything anyway.

JohnKScott

Friday - very easy recovery ride. IF .53 whopping TSS of 29

Saturday - Just shy of 3 hours solo. Kicked myself pretty good. Decided to attack one steady little climb on my route. 8% avg for about .75 miles. The actual climb itself took 4:30 (new personal best) and netted a new personal best 5 minute power (300 watts or 4.2 w/kg). First category on the eWang chart to get into the "moderate" category, though my FTP may just creep up in there upon a retest. Also finished the course in a personal best time though I really wasn't concerned about that. Legs hurt a bit after this one but I seemed to recover pretty well during the day. I think I'm in better condition that I've ever been in. Seems I'm seeing substantial improvement. Anxious to see how this translates in races. First race of the season coming up on 5/8.

Sunday - Off & ate like a savage!

mollusk

About 10 miles of walking today in and around Kerkyra, Corfu, Greece. I saw one bike rider on a road bike. I didn't get a good look, but I think it was a Look. And he was the only rider I saw wearing a helmet. Everyone else was riding beat up mountain bikes or children on children's bikes. None of the children were wearing helmets.

I was disappointed in the coffee at the hotel breakfast. It was American-style: tastes like a brown Crayon dipped in hot water. (See, I do read the previous posts!) I have an automatic espresso machine at home so I get nearly instant gratification. I miss it. I should have been tipped off when there were signs directing hotel patrons to the nearest Starbucks (yikes!). The Greek yogurt was good and I ate that with some fruit.

Didn't botto used to say that Americans were fat and Euros were properly proportioned? If true they should throw this part of Europe out of the EU. Folks around here are just as fat and they smoke, too.

mike868y

right now my training is kind of in an in between stage.

I'm definitely planning on taking it easy this week and purposefully letting my fitness drop a tad. I don't think I'm mentally or physically ready to maintain the level of training I'd been doing pre taper. I'll start picking things up again in a few weeks, but I'm also planning on working some cross training in (lifting, running :gasp. Then once school ends I'm off to washington to ride across country. After that I would be ecstatic to make some of the later NE road races after a few weeks of intensity work (would love to make a strong showing at tokeneke). Then I'll probably rest up a bit, enjoy orientation week and the first few weeks of school and then jump into prep and base training for 2012. After this past weekend, I think I've convinced myself that I'm ready for Collegiate Bs next year (cat 3/4). Then my goal next summer will be to get my 3 upgrade. woot!

waterrockets 

Went for a nice ride in the rain. I missed the rain. I did a couple threshold intervals, just trying to stay in the zone w/out killing myself (~330W). I was riding with a couple training partners who were taking it a bit easy today, so I feathered front brakes to allow them to keep up. Strange feeling, but works.

mattm

Saturday was solo 3.5 hours in the sun! Got to wear only shorts/jersey for the first time in forever.

Sunday was 4.5 hours with a few team mates.. some of them more experienced than others. First of all, if you're doing a 70+ mile ride in April in WA, bring a ****ing jacket & fenders! Especially if it's already raining when you start.. Kid that's half my age came out, of course with only shorts, jersey, & arm warmers.. his fender goes haywire in the first mile of the ride, we stop so he can tear it off and throw it behind a bush. But we're only getting started..

About an hour later he needs to stop, says he chipped a tooth on a power bar?! Sure enough, he really did chip a tooth. And to top it off he got a nosebleed shortly before that, so now he's bleeding from the nose, chipped a tooth, and probably shivering from the rain too. Only 14 or so miles outside of town so he decided to turn around and call it a day.. man oh man, I hope his day got better!

Nice kid, just not very lucky I guess.

Oh yeah and also, just because you know a route, doesn't mean everyone else does. It was like I was riding with three out-of-towners, every turn became an event that almost crashed us out.. ugh. Now I remember why I mostly trained solo last season.

caloso

Back on the bike today after a week off for a non-bike vacation. We walked tons everyday but that's not a huge training stress so I didn't even give myself an estimated TSS. I did some running, but had some horrible delayed onset pain on Sunday. I thought I could grit my teeth through it but it so bad I could barely walk, and I was 2 miles from the house.

I can't believe I used to do marathons....

Hida Yanra

Friday & Saturday I beat myself up pretty good.
Friday I went hard enough that I had to get off the bike for a minute at the top of a climb (WALL)... but that's okay.
Saturday was hopefully going to be a hard, attacking ride with fast teammates. Those as showed up were two OTB cat 5s, & two not-yet-racers (one M, one F)... I pulled the whole way for the first 90', then had to cut my ride short and rush back to town... so went hard on the solo portion for 75'.

Sunday was supposed to be track, but it rained, no track. However, the bus-ing to the track, and the delays from weather killed my training for the day.

Monday - went in to work early so as to be off early for a solid 2.5h training session.
the weather is pisspoor, raining, cold, trainer it is.... to spice things up it may end up being 90' hard on the trainer, the 60' on the track-bike on rollers?

geesh.

Oh, and I'm back on the shoe-hunt, Ex's race report reminded me that I need a pair of back-ups.

Hida Yanra

eh -other than copious FB posting about how epic his day was, he seems to be okay.
funny how all sorts of "bad luck" seems to happen to the least prepared ones of us. (that was me last year)

mattm

He's lucky we're all nice guys... I can't imagine the tongue-lashing someone like say Randy would have given him over all the mishaps.. anyway glad to hear he made it home alive!

Sorry to hear about the training not going as planned.. still doing Vance Creek next weekend? I'm looking forward to it.

Hida Yanra

@matt - it looks likely, I can't race on Saturday - so may as well.

jsutkeepspining

2 hours of hill repeats today in the rain. i've just learned to love riding in the rain

waterrockets 

Climbing and descending in the rain FTW. For some reason, those rides always feeling so much more epic than they really are. Very energizing for me. Almost as good as a tough rain storm that hits in the middle of a crit. Love the hell out of those too.

agoodale

4.5 hours yesterday. Enjoyed the last long ride with a teammate who is moving to a suburb of San Antonio, TX.

waterrockets - You'll probably see him in the Master's races starting next month. He'll be the tall lanky guy in a black/teal CA Pools/DeWalt kit on a BH G5. He's a strong guy but has been playing a support role on the team the last few years. Being all alone out there I'm betting he'll be on the front trying to make something happen. If you happen to talk to him tell him hello for me (Aaron).

kudude

started riding again last week after about 2 months off. I also bought a new bathroom scale (other one was dead and a new battery didn't bring it back to life). I'm 8-10 lbs overweight. I'd like to think it's the different instrument, but I do feel pretty fat.

stupid travel. Here's to hoping I can still ride enough to do a flat 4-corner once or twice this year

bostongarden

33 minutes of very easy riding yesterday for recovery.

Smallguy

I missed riding Sunday due to obligations so I got out for an hour but I rode over 2 hours both friday and Saturday and was able to preview a race course Friday with some friends.

So I went out last night and set a pr for a local loop I do quite regularly.

so now I'm starting to plan how to beat that record...lol

tonight I'll spin on the rollers since they should not disturb anyone in our apt building..... unless the rain stops then I'll go hit up a road ride or maybe mtb with a few friends and relax.

GirlAnachronism

Team practice today. Felt great. One of our sprinters wasn't there so I got to play sprinter, which was fun. I took two of the three from our regular sprinter (the new superstar girl)--on the third our leadout dropped me off a little earlier than I was expecting, and rather than jumping hard early and gapping her, which would have been to my advantage, I hesitated and got caught in a long drag race, which played to her strengths, and she sat on my wheel then out-motored me to the line. I decimated her in the other two, though, so I have to take my glory while I can until she learns how to sprint (give it five minutes, she's super talented).

Also set new 20" and 30" peak power numbers. Good times.