revchuck 

First ride since last Saturday, second on my new bike. Got a new first - my first dog bite. I'm writing this on my phone in the ER. It's not a bad bite, and my shots are up to date, so it's not a big deal. The owner wasn't home, so I'll have to address that part later.

The ride itself was pretty nice, 1:28 at endurance pace, hrTSS 100. Felt good to be on the bike after a week of family drama.

IBOHUNT

Dang Chuck. You have not been very lucky this past month or two. Hope *this* injury heals quickly and that 2015 will be a 0 hospital trip year for you.

sarals 

The dog didn't make you fall off of your new bike, did it?

nacler22

Damn Chuck. Did you bite him back?

Hope that you heal up quick, and that you can get some compensation from the owners.......in whatever form that makes sense.


I went ice skating on the Colnago today. Don't ask me why; I can't come up with a good answer.

revchuck 

Nope, though strangely enough, the reason he was able to ambush me like he did is that I was checking out a spot to my left to take a picture of the bike and he came in from the right.

revchuck 

Nope again...I would've been arrested for cruelty to animals.

nacler22

Grace under pressure......commendable.

shovelhd

Heal up.

revchuck 

He just broke the skin, the ER doc didn't even give me antibiotics. The nurse covered the marks with antibiotic cream and gauze. That's it. Given the possibilities, I was pretty lucky.

Racer Ex 

I like dogs. Dog owners are another story. Stories.

Time for a rabbit's foot?

Heal up Chuck. They aren't all vicious...

sarals 

No they aren't. Chuck, heal up!!

I felt quite good yesterday so I took the Venge out to check my lungs. No issues. Nada. Got the heart rate up, was able to put in some big efforts, sustain efforts, recover - everything. All felt great!

This morning I went out to do an hour or so JRA. It's cold, like 38 degrees. The act of pulling the bike out of the car got me to coughing up all sorts of junk. I decided to give the rest one more day. I may do an hour on the trainer tonight after work, in fact, I probably will. I'm hoping to get a JRA ride in tomorrow. Monday morning I'm going on an R/V trip to Yosemite, and I won't be back home until Thursday. I'll be off the bike for at least three days, probably four. And, my first crit is January 11th. Ex is sure this off time will be good for me. I believe him. Still, I worry!

AzTallRider

The only dog bite I've had as an adult (totally my fault) became infected despite my immediately cleaning it out with peroxide and alcohol. Almost had to have surgery to clear out the infection. In fact the PCP told me to go see the hand surgeon, stat, but I chose to give the antibiotics a chance, and they worked. Surgery avoided.

jbenkert111

FChuck, maybe I'm wrong or missing something here. But shouldn't you be getting ahold of the owner and making sure the dog has an up to date Rabies shot. If you can't find owner, then I would get the series of rabies shots. I had them a couple of years ago and they were a piece of cake.

DGlenday

New(ish) poster here.

I posted in this forum some time ago, when I was toying with the idea of racing. Since then I've joined a velo club, started 5 crits, and did reasonably well in the National 24 hour Challenge. However my training was not well planned (and life ... in the former of business travel ... got in the way) - so my results have been sub-par.

I figured that this is the time of year to start getting my 2015 training program sorted out, and started.

I have the Friel 'bible' and will refer to that, but I hope to find many down to earth, experience-based nuggets of training wisdom here.

(I'll also be leaning on my friend IBOHUNT for input. He had a VERY successful 2014 TT season.)

revchuck 

Welcome, Duncan! You won't be getting many of those nuggets from me, I'm too much of a newbie myself. Good to have you aboard.

shovelhd

Check out the workout sticky in the 33. One thing you will learn is that you should not emulate how other people train, you need to figure that out yourself or with help.

Hermes

Yesterday, Cleave and I did the Sisterhood of Cycling group ride from Dana Point to Oceanside and back. 3 hours of being hammered. I felt like a piece of steel at the black smith shop. It was great to see Cleave and ride with my wife's new team. Amber Neban is the group leader and team coach. Plus John Howard showed up who is coaching one of the women. Amber brought some other fast men so we had a group of about 1/2 men and 1/2 women. The weather was excellent with cool temperatures ranging from 48 to 63 with sun. I chatted with John Howard after the ride. He is an interesting guy and although he may have lost something over the years, it sure did not seem like it on the ride.

Racer Ex 

Howard is/was a pretty remarkable athlete. Neben isn't too shabby either.

Put together a nice string this week. Haven't downloaded the files yet but got in 3 consecutive hard days Fri-Sun on the new Emonda. Like the 11 speed stuff, and Dura works a fair bit cleaner than Ultegra on the battery powered stuff.

Saturday I did a modified Hermes route. Tons of riders out. It was like shooting Freds in a barrel. Towards the end of the ride I caught and passed a guy right at the crest of a climb. He sat on for a few miles at a pretty good pace then came around. Old school single speed bike. Respect.

Today I rode around and over the San Andreas fault a few times. Checked out the epicenter of the 1906 quake. Uplift-a-plenty. One climb was 12% for a mile. Amazing how good sea level felt after training at altitude for the past few months. Even with pretty cooked legs the power output was good.

If I can chop off 10 pounds I might be halfway decent in a month or two. Easier:

Throwing a few more bucks at upgrades on the bike to knock off another half pound. Pictures to
follow.

BTW, for post workout sweats in cold climates check out Alternative's organic heavy french terry slim cut. About 4 times the cost of Wal Mart stuff but holy cow are they warm and comfy, and about 8 times the quality.

sarals 

It's been too freaking cold to ride in the morning before work here (upper 30's, you in the NE, shut up!), so I've resorted to the trainer. No r*****g, either. My chest has completely cleared up, my lungs are 100% and my body 93 - 95%. I did a 30 minute pace spin on Saturday, and two interval sessions, 30 minutes and 50 minutes, yesterday. That trainer is just plain hard! The TSS was unusually low for the power output and the amount of sweat, but whatever. Now I'm going out of town for a few days to Yosemite. No bike. Probably too much food. And drink. First road event in two weeks. Ahhh, I need the break. Want it or not!

Happy New Year, everyone!

IBOHUNT

Duncan,

You'll do fine if you can just tell work to bugger off. The schedule that they have you on is rubbish.

I found that out the hard way. I could never train like my team mates. They would want to do a lot of sprint and crit type workouts. Not my strong suit nor was it in my plans.

A book that @AzTallRider said I should read, and I have, had a small nugget in it that hit me on the side of the head. To paraphrase '"We all don't wear the same size shoe, what makes you think we can all perform the same activity and get the same results?

BAM!

I'd suggest writting down what you want to accomplish this year. (I think that the bible thing tells you that as well)
Once you write it down it becomes the law and you have to get it done or puke trying. My marching orders last year were "podium a couple of races"

xW increase in your FTP from your test on the 3rd?
Pack finish at the Martinsburg Mall training race on Feb 15th?

Once you define what you want to accomplish you can talk to Chris or another coach I know that can help plot the map.

I'm just over the hill from you. Anytime you want to ride let me know. Just pick a day when it's not in the teens.
I had a decent season. Didn't accomplish everything I wanted to and not sure that I want to go through that much work in a hobby again and(!) nobody has told me what I have to accomplish so for now I get to be a decent C group rider

IBOHUNT

Happy New Year Sara. Enjoy Yosemite. Maybe get in some trail r*****g
I've always thought trainer sessions are harder on me than out on the road. Perhaps it's the amount of water I have coming off me (more than a drunk co-ed in a wet t-shirt contest at spring break) or the fact that there are no downhill bits that I can coast on.

Example:
2 hour session on the trainer; TSS of 75 (IF .614)
2 hours on the road; TSS of 102 (IF .665)

Racer Ex 

I have an adjustable trainer factor built into my training spreadsheet that defaults to a 7% FTP reduction. There are a lot of factors that make trainer rides more difficult, from constant drag to heat dispersion, to 02 depletion. Best set up/lab monkey I've seen is GStein who can get that down to 2-3%. Worst cases are close to 10%.

shovelhd

Mine is set for 7% but RPE tracks closer to 10%.

IBOHUNT

Thanks! I reckon that is one of them "experience-based nuggets of training wisdom" that @DGlenday was asking about
So if I can get this right in my head. A hypothetical "Normal" FTP = 200. You base a 95% sweet spot indoor session at (200-7%) *.95 = 186W * .95 or 177W?

shovelhd

I would derate the FTP first and then set the zones from that. My workout plan has power targets for outdoor and indoor which gives me the choice depending on time and the weather.