caloso

I am seriously considering eating my race fee for tomorrow's Folsom crit, especially if none of my teammates show up. It's basically going to be in peak of the storm system that's rolling through.

Saturday, February 8 at 10am
Temperature: 52 °F Dewpoint: 51 °F Wind Chill: N/A Surface Wind: SSE 20G36mph
Sky Cover: 100% Precipitation Potential: 97% Relative Humidity: 96%
Thunder: <10% Rain: Occasional (80%-100%)

AzTallRider

Looks pretty nasty, alright.

caloso

Yeah, I don't mind rain and I don't mind wind but the combination is something else. I once ran a marathon in those conditions, but there's much less chance of crashing in a running race and I'd trained for several months for that particular event. Plus I was a lot poorer then so eating the entry fee would have stung more.

Cleave

Hmmm... eat entry fee or spend at least that amount on Tegaderm?

revchuck 

Mid-50s, 16 mph winds, 100% chance of rain...I'd sit home and drink something warm, or something warming. I did hill repeats in that same weather last weekend and I was miserable.

Hermes

I am on my way to the gym for a weight/plyo workout. First, I brought in the garbage cans and I did not like being outside in the cold, wet icky weather.

shovelhd

Buncha wimpusses.

sarals 

I'm one of those!

sarals 

A wonderful hour on the trainer this morning. Thank heavens for Pandora. I managed to bump the cadence pickup with my foot, and it screwed up the cadence figures. I was spinning merrily along, too.

Openers tomorrow, a (maybe) crit Sunday...

revchuck 

1:52 at endurance pace today. It felt like an enactment of "The Song of the Volga Boatmen." My legs didn't even want to push. My HR was in about the right place, but I was as slow as molasses. Still tired from the sprint workout last night? Don't know. 73 mile team ride tomorrow - hope I can pull my head out by then!

Hermes

Roller party at my coaches cycling gym this AM. 4x20 100 rpm+ at tempo power. I did high power jumping last night so this was a nice compliment and it is time to start adding volume. It is raining all weekend so the Saturday supported group ride was moved to the cycling gym. We had a good turnout of people.

revchuck 

Team ride semi-fail. I was pulling into a headwind, and pulled longer than I should have because I was coming up to a corner where pulling off would be more logical; pulled off the front after the corner and the guy behind me accelerated about five mph (since we no longer had the headwind). I was too fried to match the acceleration once I realized what had happened and never caught back on. I did about ten minutes in Z4 trying to keep them in sight so I could catch back on at the next corner, but it was a long straightaway.

I had a set of 5x10" sprints to do in the small ring, starting at 18-20 mph. First one went sprint, shift to next cog, accelerate, shift to next cog, accelerate, shift to next cog and the chain doesn't budge, cuss. I'm comfortable at 120-130 rpm seated; standing, not so much. Stop, move barrel adjuster a quarter turn, get going again and try the second one, same result. Stop, turn barrel adjuster two more quarter turns, try again, the third shift is down to a half second or so...but now the chain hesitates shifting back up the cassette. Did the last two in the big ring, it worked better but not perfectly. My guess is that it's time for new cables - the ones on there have at least 5-6k miles on them. Looking on the bright side, I'm glad I found this out in training rather than in a crit!

valygrl

I haven't ridden outside for 2 weeks. Thank god for TrainerRoad custom workouts & Sufferfest.

Of course, we are getting nice weather next week, just in time for me to go on a work trip and have a rest week.

revchuck 

Re: intensity, I'm having issues with this as a result of having worked so much on base and threshold, and I think it's mostly between my ears. I'm seeing the downside of having a 105 mile RR as my first A race of the season, with a B/C race - 20km TT and 25 minute crit - three weeks prior. Dial it up to just under threshold and stay there, no problem. Push it past threshold and my body (mind?) goes into "WTH?" mode.

Illustration: Last Sunday the team did a high intensity ride in preparation for the upcoming crit, and it was the first time I've done this with them. After a good warmup, we turned onto the part of the route where the hammer drops and I was third wheel. The two guys in front of me began to ramp up the speed, I continued that during my pull, pulled off when my HR was already over threshold, stayed in the wind while the rest of the 20+ guy paceline passed, grabbed back on at the end to find that the pace had increased from ~23 mph to ~27 mph and was still increasing. I didn't stay on too long after that. My only comfort was seeing that I wasn't the only one who came off.

I made some obvious mistakes. Being third wheel was the dumbest. Pulling too long was another one. The worst was coming off before I popped - a definite HTFU fail, and something I vented about to my coach when I did my ride report. That was the first time I vented to her like that, and she might be a little startled when she reads that report.

This was apparently not unforeseen by my coach, since in the training schedule she made up for me a few weeks ago, I've got 20 minutes above-threshold scheduled for tomorrow, and in a more recent training schedule I've got a bunch of VO2 max intervals in the next few weeks. Still, it was a pretty painful wake-up call. The team will start doing these rides twice a week once the time changes, so I'll get more practice at this. This Sunday's crit ought to be interesting.

AzTallRider

Totally expected given the huge base you've been doing, Chuck. The good news is that you can build up the high intensity much more quickly, and the benefits of the big base will stay with you through the season. Another thing on the mental side - high intensity intervals, by design, get you to the failure point. So look on that "I gave all I had and then was dropped" as a good thing. You took it to failure, maximizing your training. You probably got more out of it than those for whom it wasn't 'to failure'. And it's a training ride, so where you finish doesn't matter... at all.

Three weeks is plenty of time between the crit and the RR, and the high intensity will help you in the RR as well. Even in a RR, it's the high intensity spots that get people dropped.

revchuck 

AzTR - Thanks! I spoke with my coach this afternoon and (unsurprisingly) she echoed what you wrote. I feel a good bit less apprehensive about where I am fitness-wise. I just have to work through the pile of over-threshold and max power intervals she's laid on me. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out when I'm in the weekend stage race mode starting at the end of March.

IBOHUNT

3 days of laying in bed with the flu.
Today will be core and upper body work --- shoveling the 14+" of white sunshine that has fallen

revchuck 

IBOHUNT - Hope you got a chance to do hot toddy intervals during the unplanned rest.

I did my first 20 minute over-threshold interval yesterday. It wasn't easy, and I was pretty fried when I finished, but I did it - definitely a confidence booster. Used HR...Fedex says my Powertap wheel will be back Saturday, so I might have it for Sunday's race. Wish I would've had it yesterday.

Allegheny Jet

Looking forwards to hill intervals done outside today. It will be sunny, dry, 32 degrees and day light for most of the workout!

IBOHUNT

Lucky dog!

Hermes

Here is an article to chew on for you volume guys. [h=1]The scientific basis for high-intensity interval training: optimising training programmes and maximising performance in highly trained endurance athletes.[/h]

AzTallRider

We have those around here???

Hermes

We have a couple.

Racer Ex 

Cleaned and recabled Mrs. Ex Orbea for a ride tomorrow. Freshly waxed chain, new Nokons, new hoods. Good training for my mechanic career. Post some pics tomorrow.

Planned on hitting the track, but got a last minute email that my usual session was cancelled for paraOlympic prep. Couldn't get motivated to ride after that.

IBOHUNT

Off to surgery next week. See you fine folk when I make it back.
Train hard, race smart and stay safe.