Allegheny Jet

Starting to envy, no hate you warmer climate racers. We hit 63 for a few hours yesterday. Now this is reality in NE Ohio today

AzTallRider

Um... wow.

sarals 

Global warming?

sarals 

Getting into building base now. 2 hours 48 minutes and 37 miles yesterday at tempo. When I uploaded the data I had more time at z2 than I did at z3. Ex wants to see a bell curve - this one wasn't. I had a lot of nervous energy and it was difficult to keep the smoothness in place. I just wanted to twitch! I had a lot of fun motor pacing behind a tourist bus. Speeds and accelerations were similar to the pack in a crit, and I sat on its rear bumper for a good four miles. A lady who had seen me doing that told me "wow, that was impressive!" I continue to feel really good after that thrashing and pounding I did over the weekend. I am blown up like a puffer fish, though. I swell up all over after a hard race. TSS was 180 something, and my average cadence was 81 - good news, I'm spinning along nicely now!

Bariani Road Race on Sunday...

revchuck 

5x6 minute intervals at 5-10% over threshold, with descending RBIs which I made even tougher by screwing up the math, so they were 5, 4, 2, 1 minutes (instead of 5, 4, 3, 2). Ouch.

revchuck 

The team rode a charity ride in support of the ride's goals today. Not at charity ride speed, though. After a ~15 minute warmup, the hammer dropped. No problem staying with them as the pace went up, took a pull, dropped back and re-integrated about eight spots back. Took another pull - 25 mph into a quartering headwind, didn't know I could do that - and decided to drop to the end of the line and rest for a while. Turns out there were about 25 guys altogether in the paceline, with 6-8 pulling and the rest sucking wheels. The last guy was right up against the edge of the pavement, so there was no way to get out of the wind. I kept it at 25 mph for about another minute, then that was all she wrote. About an hour prior to the end of the ride, my lower back and hips started yelling at me in harmony. I set no speed records that last hour. I had two bowls of homemade chili when I finished...plus stole a half sleeve of Oreos from the SAG stop leftovers and ate them on the way home.

I came home and took a two hour nap - literally dropped my stuff in my office and hit the bed. Uploaded the data from the Garmin and it looks like I set a couple or three PRs today. I'm certainly tired enough.

Hermes

On March 6th, my wife and I left for track and road camps that took us to Marina del Rey, CA, Carson, CA and Tucson, AZ. We had a terrific time racing and training at VSC and the Cycling House Camp was superb. The staff was wonderful and we met some great people and made new friends. I set another PR for the 500 m racing and rode with the fast men at camp. I did hang out in Offthebackistan but only when I chose to. I did not have a problem keeping up. My friend and competitor from NorCal was riding with us and told me that it was the best he has seen me ride. There were many highlights of the camp but the most memorable was climbing Mount Lemmon 21 mile climb with the last couple of miles above 7000 feet. The campers were from all over with 3 from New Jersey and a couple from Canada. We had several triathletes and they were swimming and running as well as biking. I have a super cut out tri jersey that will not only show off my guns but my abs as well.

We arrived on Thursday at VSC and did Roger's racer session. I told Roger I wanted to focus on the 500 meters and team sprint so after the 80 lap warmup, I did flying one laps. He led me out on the motor for two laps and I dove off the banking for a flying one lap by myself. I have done this type of effort at Hellyer behind the motor at the rail but not at VSC before. Winding up to 35+ mph at the balustrade at VSC behind the motor was not a problem and on the last one of four, I set a new PR for cadence and speed for a flying lap.

On Friday, I met with Jim Manton of ERO Sports to check my position on the track bike when I am using the Scatto sprint bars. Jim looked at me in the studio but decided he wanted to see me on the track at full power. So I did another flying one lap. Jim thought the position was perfect for team sprint. So I am keeping my rotated 500 meter and pursuit position for team sprint. However, Jim said that if I want to race match sprints, points or scratch, I need to move the saddle back to a more roadie position. I am going to get another saddle / seat post and Jim will set me up on the mass start race position on my track bike. Then all I have to do is swap handle bars and seat posts.

On Saturday, I met a racer from St Louis, who was in Carson for LAVRA and wanted to do team sprint. I talked with VanceMac and he agreed to do it with us. The new guy said that he was a 3rd position specialist.

On Sunday, we did the LAVRA TTs and it started with team sprint. The guy from St Louis is a young, strong, cat 2 but showed up at the starting line with 100 gear inches. Vance and I dropped him at the start and put 5 bike lengths into him. He rode the 750 meters by himself.

The 500 was after team sprint and I set another PR by .3 seconds. I was 8th out of 41 racers in the 500 meters.

Besides the training and racing at VSC, I got in 5 gym workouts at Equinox in Marina del Rey and Beverly Hills that including a lot of jumping. Marina del Rey has a great set of plyo boxes that are padded and stack up to make various heights. Since I had a padded boxes, I did some 30 inch jumps. I did miss on one jump and my shin hit the padding so no problem.



We had dinner with R'Ex and his charming and beautiful wife on Friday and hooked up with some other LA friends on Sunday evening for dinner.

Monday, was more jumping but we visited the smaller Getty Museum at the ocean to look at some really old art and statures. I found my god Hermes in the garden and as a full bust. I do not have wings on my feet yet. I took a number of pics of busts of old rulers looking for a resemblance to Racer Ex - found one.

Hermes



Photo by Mrs Hermes


Selfie

Racer Ex


Photo by me

Tuesday, we flew to Tuscon, AZ for a 5 day road camp hosted by the Cycling House. The Cycling House runs camps throughout the US and Europe. They have a large house with multiple bedrooms near Mount Lemmon that can accommodate 15 people plus staff.

We met a friend at the LA airport who was also doing the camp and we flew together to Tucson. He speaks German and MEA is learning German so here they are on the plane doing Rosetta Stone German 101 on the iPad.


Photo by me

The Cycling House picked us up at the airport and our rental bikes were waiting for us with the exact measurements of our bikes. I filled out a detailed spec sheet and they built up Cannondale EVO bicycles. We put on our saddles and Vector power pedals and we were ready to ride. Here is a video put together by the Cycling House for us. It has a lot of great pictures and music and of course has a lot of other meaning to those of us that attended the camp.

Click on the link below to see a great slide show of AZ.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bw4E...RHVjBob1k/edit

Here are a couple of my favorite pics from the camp.

Riding with the fast guys. I basically rode as hard as I could for 5 days straight. The climb we are on in this pic was about 3.5-4W/Kg for me. You can see we did not put much time into the women.


Photo by The Cycling House


Photo by The Cycling House

Here is Brendon and I. Brendon, who is one of the staff, set tempo most of the time.


Photo by The Cycling House

I am working on my selfies and here is Heidi, one of the staff, and I.



Selfie


It is good to be back home but Arizona was a blast.

revchuck 

The past week was strange, worrying, and enlightening. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get past the bottom of the steep part of the learning curve.

Last Sunday's ride (2:52 at endurance pace) was done with motivation at about whalesh8t level. It wasn't that I didn't want to ride, I just didn't want to do anything except lay around the house. Wondering WTF the problem was, I checked my TSS for the seven days prior...993. I think that's called a clue. Monday's ride was 2:03 at the bottom end of endurance pace. Tuesday was a rest day. Wednesday was originally planned for 4x9' at Z6, which was cut back to two intervals during my Tuesday phone call with my coach. I made it through 7:30 the first interval and about 4:30 on the second. I was toast. I emailed my coach and told her that the scheduled 40 minutes at Z4 on Friday wasn't going to happen, so she changed it to a recovery ride; Thursday's ride was already a recovery ride. I felt a good bit better by the end of Friday's ride.

Saturday was a team ride. The team quadzilla (FTP apparently >400 watts) pulled us around for 1:30. I actually attacked a couple of times coming out of corners, just to try it out. Ended up with an IF of .95 for that ride, and felt like I could've gone for a good bit longer. Amazing what a little bit of rest can do. Today's ride was more of the same but at a lower power due to dawdling about the first half hour; I dropped off early and came back alone. The last five minutes of my ride, a storm came in; the temperature dropped ten degrees and my displayed elevation dropped about 30 feet due to the Garmin's reliance on barometric pressure to show elevation. I got a cold shower, too!

The week prior to Rouge-Roubaix, I couldn't ride for three days when I lost power, then felt good for the race. Two day's rest after being hang-dog tired and I killed it (relatively speaking) on a team ride. Might be something to this "rest" thing.

Stage race this coming weekend, tapering all week.

Racer Ex 

When tired, rest.

And my nose isn't broken.

sarals 

Nothing to read here....

valygrl

My coach makes me rest way more than I would on my own. I'm sure she knows what she's doing. Chuck I'm surprised you only had one day off after your really hard week! My coach gave me a rest week for after my (current) hard week.

Day 1 of my training-cation went well, despite having a cold. I executed my don't-go-out-too hard plan ok for the first half of the day, then got suckered in to riding with my faster friends. 82 miles, 3300'.

sarals 

Valygrl, your photo looked great! A far cry from Colorado.

Actually, my report is about miles and miles of base. And rest. My coach is very good about programming in rest, because like you, I wouldn't do it otherwise.

Going to see my doc today about some hormonal issues. Something is definitely out of whack.

Allegheny Jet

PR's are a good thing Hermes! Pre-congrats on the beginning of a great season.

Hermes

Thanks A'Jet. One never knows if that is a preview of better things to come or the finale.

In other news, Saturday, I rode my TT bike and Sunday was a 3 hour group ride with our training group. I logged a 240 TSS but before anyone gets too excited about that, the ride was moderate and I was on the front quite a bit. And the ride felt easy to moderate not hard although supposedly I had 10 minutes of z7, 25 minutes of z6, 30 minutes of z5 and 50 minutes of z4. And my FTP is probably about right. For me, the FTP construct is effed up.

I logged a lot of 4 W/kg efforts but none for one hour which felt moderately easy. I thought my power meter might be reading high until I was scolded by my wife for putting her at 4 w/kg when sitting in on a grade when I was on the front. Women always know what is right.

Cleave

Hermes, we need to talk further about that camp. Glad that you're making so much progress in the early season.

Speaking of box jumps:

Hermes

I like Meares' shin guards.

sarals 

Strong lady, she is.

Hermes

[QUOTE=Cleave;16608417]Hermes, we need to talk further about that camp. Glad that you're making so much progress in the early season.

Speaking of box jumps:

Cleave, I will be at VSC for the next LAVRA and I can fill you in on the camp. Some of the riders signed up for next year so they can ride together again. I may have finally got my training and racing organized for my genetics.

revchuck 

Nice! I think I've figured out that I have the racing genetics of a three-toed sloth...need to find an appropriate camp!

Racer Ex 

Genetics are overrated until you go pro, and even then the less gifted often steal the milk and cookies.

Ask Alexander Kristoff, or Better yet Simon Gerrans. Neither one is going to make the list of "scary". Yet Kristoff just took MSR and Gerrans has a pretty nice resume.

Keep working, find the right race against age peers, and ride smart. Good things will happen.

sarals 

^ Yes. Period.

sarals 

I think I might have hit on something, or better, figured something out. I've been racking my brain and body trying to figure out why I'm such a lousy climber. I'm not going to go into the low LTHR, or fast twitch this or that, I am going to say that I have always thought that I was doing something fundamentally wrong. I've had people, Coach included, mention to me over the last couple of years that they thought I was was "gasping" rather than "breathing". The other thing I've been told over and over is to "keep you head up and your chest open". One lady, who is a coach, yelled at me to "look up the road, the race is there, not in front of you, and YOU'LL BREATHE BETTER."

Doh...

During the rain yesterday morning, I went to the gym to loosen up in hopes the weather would clear enough to get on the bike later in the day. While I was there, I got on a spin trainer and it hit me to try some different breathing exercises. What I felt was encouraging.

I went out yesterday afternoon and tried it. I rode up a small climb breathing like I have been, and, oh yeah, my legs loaded up as expected and wouldn't do diddly. I tried it again, this time keeping my head UP, chest OUT, and inhaling deeply though my nose, and exhaling FORCEFULLY through my mouth. I also relaxed my shoulders and hands. The lactate that had built up in my legs, for want of a better description, "dissipated" - not completely, but it wasn't at all overwhelming, like it usually is. I was able to keep my cadence up, and I went up that hill, never loading up, and spinning right along. I did't compare power numbers, but it felt like, from an RPE perspective, that I was making a little more power than I had been. Was I faster? I don't know, but I was way more comfortable! I kept going, kept breathing in this new rhythm, and continued to feel much, much better than I usually do on a climb.

I need to refine this, for sure. I also need a few more rides to confirm that it is a solution. I've done a lot this year to repair and change what was poor form. This is another fix, if it is indeed what I think it is.

AzTallRider

Here is what a physiologist I really respect says about breathing:

The Importance of Breathing: » Sigma Human Performance - Nutrition+Endurance+Performance

Hermes

Thanks AZTR.

Upper body workout at the gym last night and a track workout this AM featuring motor work and some intervals. In the late PM, I went to the cycling gym for another workout on the rollers.

Cleave

I read or heard about the importance of exhaling (CO2) during exercise a long time ago. I read something about it again recently, but I can't remember where I read it. I'm going to have to remember to exhale forcefully and rapidly tomorrow during the uphill TT.