happybday29475

lol you're not the only one counting to 42! I have wondered if anybody else was aware of the relevance of 42....(other than the meaning of life).

happybday29475

seems like old times...

For years, for me, bike racing and training was all about hanging on for dear life, and coming back home/to the finish line with eyes crossed and tongue hanging out. Last year I got the opposite perspective...but this year it's back to business as usual: I did a long ride Saturday with some new higher-category teammates, and then spent some time at the track Sunday with some different new higher-category teammates, and both days I had that old familiar feeling of "oh my gawd these guys are strong..."...

OK I get that I'm still recovering from some big downtime while simultaneously catting up, but still, any cockiness I had from last year has now been crushed.

CTL 50, TSB -25, TSS 400 for the week.

valygrl

I think I saw your team ride on Saturday, you were northbound on 75th near Hygiene, I was limping home on my TT bike after LT+ intervals that were only right at LT. It's only February, you don't have to be in shape right now.

Heathpack 

Nice interval workout at 4:30, gets your blood flowing.

40k this weekend, first one ever. Seems daunting.

valygrl

Tapering for the first road races of the season this weekend - which of course means this is the dreaded rest week.

sarals 

Back from near death...well, I feel good, now...and resting for the stage race this weekend. The weather report said "bring oars". One team mate already bailed out due to the forecast. Me? I went out and spent $250 on wet weather gear. I'm racing rain or shine.

revchuck 

I'm also in a rest week though this one wasn't dreaded. Monday was an hour at recovery pace with pedaling drills, TSS 16, IF .42. Yesterday was off, today was an hour at recovery pace, TSS 21, IF .46.

I'm doing a local metric century Saturday which will be an unofficial scrimmage with a friendly rival race team. It'll be the first race pace ride this year. I'm interested in seeing how I hold up. Most of our team's fast guys just laid around and got fat over the winter, I hope they don't expect me to take up the slack!

sarals 

Openers later today, either on the trainer or on the road, for the stage race starting tomorrow. I've brought oars. The rain "event" could be epic, according to the forecasts. I've been off the bike for two days, I feel quite rested. The illness I had seems completely gone, my concern is what it did to my endurance.

I've looked over the "who's registered" and there is some real competition signed up for the 55+ field. I've got my work cut out for me! I have a plan, though, and I will do my darnedest to stick to it. It will be fun, in spite for the rain!

Heathpack 

Rock it tomorrow, @sarals!

sarals 

And, you rock it this weekend, too, Heathie!

revchuck 

Get 'em, Sara!

Heathpack 

Openers for me today too, as @sarals alluded to. Felt pretty good on the bike.

First 40k TT is tomorrow, out at Piru. Just made some position changes on the bike and also, oh BTW, the task is to ride it without displaying the power data.

Hmm, new distance, new position, new assessment-of-effort paradigm. Should be interesting.

LAJ

Be safe, @sarals!

Rip their legs off and make them cry, @Heathpack!

Heathpack 

Thanks @LAJ! And where the heck have you been?! I was starting to worry you were sick or something.

IBOHUNT

Got outside on the TT bike for 2 hours with 1:30+ of that in the sticks. It was a mixed bag (trail mix?) of work with some short intervals for 30 min and the let the terrain dictate the last hour

TSS 132

Then I swapped out the crank to the road bike, slapped the old saddle back on it and took it out for an easy hour. (yeah, off the reservation)

TSS 52

revchuck 

Did the metric century/scrimmage this morning. I was pretty happy with how I did. In the past, I've been shelled in the first 30-45 minutes; this time, it took the kids 1:40 or so to do it. The IF for the top 1:30 of that was .94. I was able to maintain power just under threshold for about 30 minutes after that, then the bottom pretty much fell out and I finished up in Z2...and that was painful. I had a bowl of awesome chicken and sausage gumbo and a couple of cans of Coke and went to work at the LBS where I'm employed. I wasn't very productive for the first couple of hours I was there. Going to bed early tonight! 2:55, TSS 215, IF .86, 1974 kj.

shovelhd

I rode a couple of hours each yesterday and today on the new (to me) Redline. I don't have a set of road wheels yet so I rode it with the SB8 32mm block tread tires. I was riding with this guy who I normally destroy without trying on the Felt but he was crushing me. Cross tires at 50 PSI are not exactly kings of rolling resistance.

Bandera

Gumbo in all of it's variations is the key to proper nutrition and post race recovery as well as a source of general well being.

If one can achieve the patience, temperature control and constant stirring that a proper brick roux requires they may be suitable candidates for cycling training if so inclined.
Both require an absolute commitment to proper technique that rides the razor edge between Savory results and Burned.

-Bandera

Dalai

Had to Google gumbo... Sounds okay.

Heathpack 

Yesterday I just had 2.5 hours to have some fun on the bike. Figured I'd just ride with my old beginner group and say Hi to everyone. But it rained am and that ride was cancelled. Three of us put together a plan to ride in the afternoon, when the forecast was better. I know the other two pretty well, these are people who ride KOM type centuries.

It was kind of painful, I kept getting reminded to slow down. 45 minutes in, we stopped and snacks were eaten. We didn't have time to finish the route, because people were late and we had already stopped twice. Whatever, I was tired anyway and there was going to be beer after the ride.

When we decided to bail on the little climb, we turned back through my favorite canyon and I just decided to have fun and not ride slow, wait for them at the end. (More snacks!)

Then on the ride back into town, we come upon my most unlikely cycling friend, a 28 yr old climbing road racer who is about to upgrade to Cat 2. I rarely ride with him, we're just at totally different levels of ability. Haven't seen him in forever, although we text back and forth fairly regularly and have kept in touch all along. Invited him to get a beer with us, he wanted to hear about the TT stuff, so he joined us. That kind of saved the ride for me, I was mildly irritated before the happenstance meet-up. But in the end, it was a fun social ride.

valygrl

heathpack - i have friends that used to be ride-friends that I had to transition into drinks-and-dinner friends when i started training harder. one of those people is now transitioning back to my recovery-ride friend.

There were other people who were just ride-buddies who it turned out we just weren't really friends off the bike. that's ok too.

just sayin' - save the important friendships, don't ruin them by running out of patience.

Heathpack 

I have to say that I'm continually surprised how much I've maintained friendships with most of the core people from that original group. They have an anti-competition mentality, post stuff to their FB page along those lines. I respond regularly with comments along the lines of "competition is healthy" and I post a little bit about my experiences with the TTs and the training. I totally understand most people in this group don't relate, they tend to believe that bike racing is all about cutthroat competition, that the only way to achieve success is to mash everyone else down. I just want them to know its not like that, should anyone ever get an inkling to maybe give it a whirl. I try to sell it a little and to also bridge the gap with the local groups populated by racing cyclists, who I sometimes ride with.

Anyway, I get lots of support still from these people, comments about being "inspirational" and the like. And to my on-going amazement, people still seem to want to ride with me. I'm genuinely grateful to this group, it was just a little over two years ago that I did my first ever group ride and this is who I rode with. I was totally intimidated (and terrible), I remember the ride leader told me not to worry, she'd ride with me. And she did. Patiently. At the back the whole time. Sometimes I complain about the pace of these rides. In person, though, I try to push things but not destroy people. I think the expectation now is that I am the carrot, and it semi-works because people want to see if they can chase me down. Its the same reason I try to ride with the racer boys, to see if I can keep up and get a strong ride in. Yesterday just was a little more painful because one individual was late and was tired from the day before and needed the multiple stops, plus is a little fragile mentally so you can't get too far ahead. I was a little exasperated because if you're fragile + tired, I was thinking maybe you could make a point of at least being on time, so as to avoid that trifecta.

But I would get annoyed with that kind of stuff off the bike too. I think its the New Yorker in me. I hate wasting time, being late is just a huge sin in my eyes.

IBOHUNT

Was taught if you are not 15 minutes early then you are late.

IBOHUNT

65 degrees out and today is an OFF day.
:mad

sarals 

Thunderstorms, heavy rain and even hail. I may have to sit on the trainer for the recovery ride. A big issue right now is that I'm having trouble sitting for very long!