Heathpack 

Recovery ride for me on the trainer this am. It's fun to just turn the pedals without really working. With 23 minutes to go in my hour, I figured out that if I could wind up with an ave cadence of 101 if I played my cards right. Then I could title my ride Recovery 101. Haha, so I spent 23 minutes parcelling out my cadence perfectly to make that work out. I am very simple minded that I find stuff like that engaging.

@valygrl, glad your head is better.

My vision is weird but I'm generally feeling way better. Still very poor near vision, it's hard to read and do semi-important stuff to me like review MRI images. I did a spinal tap yesterday on a 2 pound chihuahua, you've got maybe a 1 mm target to get into since the spinal fluid pathway is so small in tiny dogs- that went well.

But the optics of my new lens color shift things towards the violet end of the spectrum and also I have the 3 different focal points. Left eye and right eye now see different colors with different sharpness at different focal lengths. I also have the vague sensation that my lens is jiggling all the time. I don't think it really is, I think it's the three different focal points in the lens. A little disconcerting. But so much better than this weekend that I still feel pretty much euphoric for the past few days.

I have a memorial service today for a friend my age. Died of cancer. And I just learned yesterday that a friend from college a few years younger than me- she died suddenly from complications of pneumonia. Forty five years old, married with two kids. My North Carolina peeps are all: WTF? I just saw her last week.

So there's some perspective on my screwed up race season.

Heathpack 

And @sarals, I'm glad your track session went well!

revchuck 

Unintended rest day yesterday - I was just supposed to work in the morning and then hit the gym in the afternoon, but my boss let my college-student colleague have the afternoon off and I was the guy who didn't get the memo. I left early anyway but had too much life going on to make it to the gym.

2:30 at endurance pace this morning with four one-minute efforts where I started at 90 rpm and accelerated to 100+ rpm, upshift and repeat until I couldn't hit 100 rpm. I ended up with IF .76 and 145 TSS for the ride, higher than I wanted to do since I've got 4x20' SST intervals tomorrow and that's gonna effin' hurt. Coach is making "I'm going to bump up your FTP soon" noises.

Hermes

Today, I was on the TT bike riding around Fiesta Island. My goal was an hour ride with 4 max cadence efforts. With all the rain, Fiesta continues to look like the Strada Bianchi in Tuscany Italy with quite a bit of dirt on the road.

All in all the road was okay and the workout pretty easy to execute. The weather was fab although a little cool.

Tomorrow, our weather is returning to normal.

sarals 

Yesterday I rode at Hellyer with BJ and her coach, JS. I rode quite well, I'm starting to build some fitness and my back has been trouble free as of late. I did the 30 lap warmup in 82 inches and the Scatto bars. I switched to 90 inches and the aero bars for next workout set, which were low speed jumps, simulating a held start. I stayed in the effort for two laps, with an uptrack pass on BJ in the sprinters lane (she was riding the pole line), and held that until the finish line, then sat up. 3 laps RBE, then a 1 lap acceleration, 2 lap RBE, then a 1/2 lap dig, then cooldown and rest. The sequence was repeated after the rest. Later, I put the Scatto bars back on the bike, but left the 90 inch gearing on it and did two separate flying 200 meter efforts. I was able to get over the gear each time, but still I only managed about 104 RPM at best. I was pretty well toast after all that!

Today I did a ride on the Look with BJ with some climbing and an A2 effort, 60 RPM big ring 1 minute dig x 5 with 1 minute RBE. I did that effort on a long climb, and was able to stay in each of the efforts. I can definitely feel good effects from riding on the track! The ride was one hour, and at the end of the hour I realized I was tired from the two VSC sessions and the Hellyer session.

Heathpack 

Nice workouts @Hermes & @sarals.

I was planning on riding this morning but I had a hangover instead. Open bar at yesterday's memorial service. That's sailors for you. It was a nice service. Lots of sail trips over the years.

The funeral for my college friend is this weekend back in North Carolina. I'm not going, I really wasn't that close, she was a few years younger than me. She and her husband were members of the same (coed) fraternity as I was, it was a literary thing. The husbands boss is also a brother ad he sent out word yesterday that if anyone wanted to attend but couldn't afford to because of the expense of last minute travel, he'd pick up travel expenses, just email him & he'd pay for whatever. That was nice of him, hopefully everyone can get there. People are heartbroken, it will be very moving I'm sure.

My big agenda item for tomorrow is an eye doc follow up.

revchuck 

2:45 at endurance pace with 4x20' SST intervals this morning. Stuff hurt.
First three were done at 60-70 rpm and the last was supposed to be 85+ rpm. My legs didn't want to move that fast; average cadence for the last one was 85 so I barely made it. First one was at 93% and the last three were at 92% - I thought the last was less than that, I was sucking wind both literally and figuratively. It took me a while to get back up to cruising speed after that. Then I had to go to work.

Gym tomorrow, group ride Saturday and 5-6 hours - probably solo - Sunday.

Hermes

VSC track workout. Warmup plus jumps then 4 sprint efforts.

I am still getting used to riding slow on the banking. The warmup is very slow behind the motor and I sometimes feel like it is not fast enough to keep from slipping. My coach assured me that the motor will slip before the bikes. That is somewhat comforting.

The pro sprinters can go amazingly slow on the banking. I think they can feel the grip and and know just how to feather the power so they can crawl along and then accelerate on demand. But yet another technique to learn.

I have a lot to learn. The execution in sprinting is significant. Even the drills are not easy and I get a critique on each effort with more stuff to do and refinements to make.

Today's workout was easy to do but hard to get everything perfect. It is much like the golf swing. One thing is right and two go wrong.

However, it was totally fun and I am learning a lot.

Hermes

A couple of interesting data points. The sprint workout last night took 3 hours. We started the warmup at 1PM and I finished my last sprint at 3:50 PM

My average power for the warmup prior to the final 3 lap acceleration was 100 watts. The theory is we do not want to generate any fatigue during the warmup that takes away from achieving max efforts later.

There were no measured sprint efforts in my workout. Every effort was a max effort during the sprint at the same time practicing the windup at the minimum energy effort to climb the banking and then accelerate at the perfect moment.

And then we have to hang around waiting for our physiology to recharge for the next effort.

Skiing...another interesting metric is the vertical feet per day that we ski. One of the reasons we like to ski at Deer Valley and Snow Basis is that they have high speed chairs and gondolas and no lift lines where we ski into the roped area at the chair take off our poles and get on the chair. Maybe 30 seconds of delay. Typically, we ski 10,000 vertical feet day one and then increase each day. Our recent trip, we did 10,000, 13,000 and 15,000 for the 3 days.

We have an Excel spreadsheet for each mountain and keep track of metrics each year. Our max at Deer Valley is 19,000.

sarals 

This place:




And me. Do I look happy, or what?

sarals 

@Hermes, last Sunday morning, when BJ and I did the open session at VSC, I darn near slipped off the banking in turn three. I was behind BJ. We started on the apron, then moved to the cote d azur, and then went up track to the stayers line between two and three. When we started into three, I knew we were going too slow, and I was calling to her to speed up. I felt the front start to slip, I didn't think I could go up, so I checked left and dropped to the pole line. I don't how in the heck she stayed up, but she did, and she said she didn't slip. Interestingly, as you pointed out, later on I saw riders way above the stayers line in the turn that appeared to be going quite slow. Skills, and respect from me!

sarals 

I was supposed to do a gym session Thursday, but a stiff back (and body) after a chiropractor visit that day told me I should sit it out. I went this morning, 50 minutes of strength and core training. Good heavens, I was stiff, and my lower back was complaining mildly the whole time. I warmed up on the treadmill. I tried a little jog after walking briskly for five minutes, but the impact was causing that area in my lower left back to warn me NOT to keep that up. So, I cranked the incline up on the treadmill and walked for another five minutes. I never did truly loosen up, my hamstrings were particularly tight. Which made the foam roller when I was done feel particularly good!

sarals 

Zwift this morning. Coach said "climb, keep the cadence at 60 RPM". So, I selected the hilly course, and off I went. I had to try that silly volcano, too, and that was, ummm, interesting! My back is such a weird thing. It was a little sore yesterday, and this morning it was sore AND stiff. My hamstrings were stiff, too. And neither loosened up during the Zwift session which made it very difficult to keep my cadence much above 85. HR never really got very high, either, just slightly above LTHR, although it felt much higher. The ride was not a bust, though. I got the 60 minutes in, and even did a few PR's on those climbs. Zwift is fun, much much better than sitting on a trainer staring at only a GPS display!

Heathpack 

Glad you're enjoying Zwift, @sarals. Why were you concerned about keeping your cadence over 85 rpm though, if you were supposed to climb at 60 rpm?


I've had a busy weekend. Thurs night we had our house jolted in a weird way by an earthquake- but it didn't feel like an earthquake, it felt like two explosions. Turns out it was a wee little quake, just 2.7 magnitude but epicenter was only 2 mi from house and it was really shallow, less than 2000 ft. So we wound up vacating house for a bit, going to the ATM, filling car with gas, etc, while we sorted out what had happened...


Fri morning I got up and rode the road bike on the trainer, I still had my "light work only, no TT bike" restriction. So it was 1:35 of some cadence-based tempo intervals, its just very tiring for me to sit at 105-110 rpm for 30 min on the trainer, tempo or not.


Then off to eye doc. He's actually pretty happy with where I am right now, even though I an having trouble with near vision and I have this vague feeling most of the time that my right (operated) eye is jiggling around in my head (this is an optical illusion). My vision using both eye simultaneously is not great but when they cover the left eye, the right eye has rockstar vision whereas when they cover the right eye, the vision in the left is the same old bad it was before. My brain is getting such different info from the two eyes that it can't form a good image. This might dissipate over time, it might not. But they pretty likely can solve it by operating the left eye. So we're trying to schedule that, no openings until March but I'm hopeful they will find me a surgery slot in Feb somehow.


Chaos. Change. I am meditating my way through that. Its helping for sure.


Good news is that eye doc cleared me to ride on the road and to get back on the TT bike until the second surgery, with the caveat being that a crash within the first month post-op could be a disaster for the eye. I almost went home and rode Fri afternoon but it was super windy.


I might as well have ridden because we're in this crazy wind event right now. 30 mph winds since Fri, gusts higher. TT bike off the table on account of the consequences of crashing, and I considered TT bike on the trainer. But I really wanted to get out into the real world. I did 30 miles on the bike paths in crazy wind and then came home and did 40 min of not-much-of-anything on the TT bike on the trainer.


My idea was just a little bit of time in aero on the bike. It felt surprisingly hard.


In the spirit of F-the-wind, today I gathered up two friends to head out for 40 miles of fighting with the canyon winds, canyon winds are always tougher, they are just gustier and way less predictable as to direction. They had both ridden in the wind yesterday too and were tired. So it was a pretty mellow pace. Other than the wind, it was a gorgeous day, sunny and in the 60s by the time we finished.


I got to wear my new arm warmers, I had posted pics of the arm warmers on my wish list back before Christmas. I ordered 3 pairs on Dec 18 and it was a bit of a cluster. Took 5 weeks and maybe 15 emails and the company was really apologetic about it, wound up refunding all my money. Sweet three free pairs of arm warmers. I'll put the money towards my second intra-ocular lens.

revchuck 

Interesting weekend on the bike. The training schedule said a three-hour group ride yesterday and a five-hour group (if possible) ride today.

The group ride yesterday started out pretty normally. Then the local super-strong tri guy - he was invited to compete in the recent Ironman in Australia - said he wanted to ride farther than the 50-ish miles the rest of the group was doing, so four of us (including me) broke off and went with him. He did about half of the pulling and I did my share of the remainder. There was a brisk west wind and we started heading east, so we had a headwind on the way back in. One guy popped off, and another started to cramp not far from the end; I stayed back to help the cramper, who decided that he didn't want me to pull for him. Of course, by the time he and I got that sorted out, the other guys were too far up the road to catch so I did the last few miles into the headwind alone. I love it when a plan comes together. Moving time was 3:42, TSS was 241, IF was .79, 73.4 miles

No group ride today. From the report for my coach:
Moving time was 3:41, TSS was 184, IF was .70, 65.8 miles. What a difference a paceline and rested legs make!

The week's TSS goal was 725-800 and I ended up with 817. Next week will be easier - two recovery days, two gym days, 3x20' intervals Wednesday (first at threshold, the others SST), and a recon of the full Rouge-Roubaix course Saturday. Recovery period starts Sunday, and I'll be ready for it.

sarals 

@revchuck - whew! I got tired just reading that. Wow...

@Heathpack, the 60 RPM cadence was stipulated for the climbs. Coach wanted me to spin where I could when NOT climbing. No bueno today, though.

Green suits you - you look good in it!

Heathpack 

Right @sarals, that makes sense.

Green? Really? I thought "blue"!

Hermes

Endurance this weekend. Saturday 7 laps around Fiesta Island (the big track) and then a two hour ride up the coast. The weather was back to normal with light wind and warmer temperatures.

@Heathpack I see blue not green in your pic.

sarals 

@Heathpack and @Hermes: I'm looking at your photo on this monitor I have at work - which obviously isn't calibrated! I'll take your word on the blue! And no matter, you look great in that color, whether it be blue or green.

IBOHUNT

5K on the tradmill at noon then an hour of Z2 zwifting.
Told I get to travel yet again for a week at the end of the month. Time to print those t-shirts...


1/CTL
My fatness is up and fitness is down

sarals 

Travel again? Ugh...

Interesting day at Hellyer yesterday. I had some troublesome stomach cramps right after breakfast, but they subsided and I drove up to the track. When I got there I unloaded all of my stuff from my car, and while BJ and I were waiting for the supervisor to arrive the cramps "arrived" again. Ugly! They subsided again, and I got all ready for the warmup, only to have them come back, even worse than they had been previously. I missed half of the 30 lap, but did manage to get on for the last 15 laps. I hit VO2 max on the last lap (for some fateful reason, I'm always on the front for the last 26 MPH lap!). After that, I felt pretty good, and BJ and I did three flying 200's in 90 inch gearing. They were so-so from a speed/time standpoint, but I started to get a grasp of the technicalities involved with getting them right. And I don't get them right! After those 200's, BJ and swapped over to aerobars on the bikes, with the intent of doing a six lap pursuit with half lap exchanges. Except, the cramps hit me again (I drank some water), and this time they literally laid me out. I recovered enough to get my gear and bike back into my car, and then had another bought of cramps. They subsided and I was able to drive home. Thank heavens!

Today, so far, I feel okay. Dehydrated, but okay. I just ate a banana, and we'll see how that sits.

Racing Sunday. On the road. Not the track.

revchuck 

@sarals - I hope that banana begins to right the ship. Nap intervals!

Short recovery ride Monday, felt a bunch of aftereffects from the prior two weeks. My CTL is higher now than it's been in almost a year, so that's no big surprise. Yesterday, I was supposed to work half a day and go to the gym in the afternoon; my co-worker called at 11 and said he had a doctor's appointment and wouldn't be in, so I worked the rest of the day and didn't get to the gym. Bah.

Today I was supposed to do 1x20' at threshold and 2x20' at sweet spot within a 2:30 endurance pace ride. My eyes popped open at about 0100 and try as I might, I couldn't get back to sleep - my body wanted to but my mind's switch was lock-wired in the "on" position. This morning was my weekly teleconference with my coach, and she told me to not worry about the intervals, the priority is to keep me healthy for Saturday's pre-ride of the Rouge-Roubaix course. I'll get out for a short ride for the next three days.

Bandera

Weird strong SW winds for days are keeping me off of the traditional FG rides but w/ unseasonably warm temps it's been a day of technique work holding 90RPM+ into the wind and up a false flat for a mile. Looping around to recover completely to get low, relax & do it again, and again.....

I was thinking that this must be what Dutch riders deal with every day: On wet roads, in 40 degree colder temps and without a decent place for Fajitas for lunch.

-Bandera

Heathpack 

@IBOHUNT, too bad on the travel and the indoor-workout weather
@sarals, crazy stuff, I was following your travails on FB
@revchuck, bah is right. People should come to work and not mess up our cycling.
@Bandera, wind. Tell me about it.

Monday I was off. Yesterday I did a bit of climbing on the TT bike and today a couple of short threshold intervals and some cadence work. Tomorrow three of we Nightcrawlers are going to ride a canyon ride before dawn. It's been really cold, in the 30s.

Some life and cycling drama going on, upsetting stuff. Also a bit of frustration trying to get my second eye surgery scheduled. Still not sure when that will be. My surgeon is trying to beg some OR time from another surgeon, OR availability is the rate-limiting step.

With my vision being "off," I am just having trouble connecting to the world. I just sit around a lot and stare into space because it's hard to see things at variable distances, so it winds up being tiring to do too much.

My far vision is fine though, so I'm planning on racing Sunday unless weather is bad or there's a slide on the course or something. My beginner cycling group rescheduled last weekends ride on account of the wind and that ride will take place on Sunday. The route happens to overlap with the Piru TT course and with the timing of the ride start, they may actually arrive at the TT course right when our race is starting. One person messaged me just wondering about the timing of the race, as I was explaining it, I suggested that if they arrived when the starts were happening, maybe they could just stop and watch the starts and then not enter the TT course until the last rider was off. My thought was it would be interesting for the group to see and also it would maximize safety for everyone.

This caused outrage from one member of the group whose position was that the people racing should just slow down to a safe speed and share the road with everyone. The ride leader is adament that it is the group's right to ride through the TT during the race and why should they delay their ride even 15 minutes for "racers".

OMG this is the group that I rarely ride with any more because they literally will be out for 5 hours with 3 hours of pedaling time. Yes they will regroup for two HOURS on a 50 mile ride. Yet they begrudge "racers" a 15 min delay. It was just so depressing to read. However, I did message some people privately and one person publicly posted that no way would she be willing to disrupt the race, if she got there at start time, she'd be the one cheering the loudest at my start. I think they won't roll through the course en masse at 15 mph. But I have big consequences for my eye right now if I crash, so I think if they do that I may just have to sit up and stop racing and not be too frustrated by the whole thing.

Great friends, right?

Racer Ex 

@Heathpack :

My reply would be that the person is being extremely selfish. The promoter actually has to get a permit to put on this event, with a specified time period. There's a tiny number of places where we can do this. They have people there to perform traffic safety, timing, registration, and scoring. This event happens a half dozen or so times a year for racers who pay a fee to do this event.

Fellow cyclists who are out promoting the sport.

In the meantime there's a million miles of road in SoCal, 104 weekend days, and a 12 hour window of daylight to have a group ride. Yes, everyone has a right to ride on that road, but why urinate all over fellow cyclists to prove that point? Is that fun? Especially TT folks who are among the more mellow of people?

Moving the spot or time is not an option for Tren. It's an option with few limits to the group. Enough cyclists get killed by cars every year. Why would we risk each other just to prove a point?

It makes no sense from any rational perspective. It's endangering everyone. Is it worth this?



The group leader is exhibiting extremely poor leadership.

Feel free to pass this on and attach my email address to the note. To both the indignant person and the group "leader".

FWIW several years ago a shop owner who got pissy at the guy who was promoting the TX State TT took his group shop ride through the middle of the event. The people who suffered worst were the group riders who weren't prepared for people like me coming by at 30+ MPH without the noise warning they got from a car.