Heathpack 

I know nothing about weights but congrats, that sounds like an accomplishment.

sarals 

@Heathpack, thanks! I'm shooting in the dark myself, and I was frankly quite surprised I could "push" that amount of weight. Then again, it might not compare, at all, to what other women do with their weight workouts.

Where IS everyone??

Happy Valentines Day!

Bandera

I pulled-up Lame, the Vet was going to shoot me but since I'm already out-to-pasture was given 7-10 days off the bike, a cane, a bottle of Rye whiskey and a copy of Fallout 4 for Xbox.
Good thing it's still winter.

-Bandera

revchuck 

Making Sazeracs, eh?

Bandera

Yep. It's a tradition.

Sazerac Company

-Bandera

Heathpack 

I am rethinking my place in the cycling universe.

sarals 

Voodoo76

Too much thinking is not always conducive to good riding. Find purpose in the effort (training), anything beyond that is window dressing.

As far as training goes finishing up two weeks of volume & feel tired and slow(er) as expected. Rest then some testing, first race March 11th. State TT May 19th, I will not be ready of course. I'm tweaking my training a bit and going to more of a 2 weeks on/Rest pattern. Building up through three weeks when the volume goes up does not feels sustainable in my old age.

IBOHUNT

PP in @revchuck type weather yesterday

sarals 

Team Camp this past weekend. I drove SAG for the women for three days, and then rode the last day. I only made 32 miles of the planned 50. Track sprinter. Not enduro. Sure not a climber, either. It was fun, however, and how we bonded as a team! Now, if some of the women would just come over to the track side....

Hermes

I did 7 days of Skiing the end of January and followed that up with an additional 8 days of altitude training. During my ski vacation, I moved my SPO2 from 89% at the base of Park City, UT to 95% at the end of the trip.

I have been focusing on more endurance work with some track - mostly endurance.

Last night, I worked out at VSC doing a sprint workout. I did a warmup and then 4 jumps - 2 seated and 2 standing. Then I did 3 sets of one jump off the banking between turns 3 and 4 to the start finish line, rest 3 minutes and then a full windup flying 100 meters. That gave me 10 high power efforts. I felt great after and today as I am writing this.

Heathpack 

Well I had a bunch of drama over the date of the SoCal State TT and then more drama when they changed the date again yesterday. But in the end, it looks like I'm going to be able to race the SoCal, NoCal and Washington State TTs this year, +/- Utah and the timing of it all should work out pretty ok.

Just tried a position change on the TT bike as of today, lowered the elbow pads a bit, we'll see how that goes on tomorrow's workout when I have to put out some sustained power. But for the work I did today, it went ok.

Speaking of which: today was a big gear workout with some off-the-bike core stuff. We have big winds today, so I just pedaled into a headwind and it worked out well.

Tomorrow some long TT intervals, gotta figure out what stretch of road I can get those done on. Sunday either the club group ride or a MTB ride, haven't decided yet.

I've been stretching a lot, and flexibility had improved quite a bit. But my shoulders and neck are pretty sore after riding in the new position, so this afternoon: 90 min Thai massage.

Hermes

I love the Thai massage. I use a place in La Jolla called the Asian spa which is a massage parlor that has Chinese female therapists. They do a combination of Thai, deep tissue and traditional oil. They also have the bars in the ceiling so that they can walk on your back. I usually go for the 90 minutes. The next day, I can be sore from the massage.

I find changing position on the TT / pursuit bike is very hard. For me it is mostly about pain and injury. I work hard on the flexibility stuff but small changes in bike fit seem to provoke soft tissue injury that then hangs around for a long time.

Figuring out where to do a particular workout, with rest intervals and warmup, sometimes seems more challenging than the workout itself.

I have been watching the ocean all day and the winds are WNW at 20 mph with whitecaps. Catalina is clearly visible in the distance.

sarals 

@Hermes, it's clear and cold up here, lots of whitecaps on Monterey Bay, too. You aren't missing a thing!
@Heathpak, it is SO good to see you back on here! It's even better to see your fire burning brightly as ever.

Today, a 30 minute cadence drill, intervals. 1 min low, followed 1 minute high X 15. I did it on the trainer because it was just too cold to go outside (34 degrees). That was one of the hardest workouts I've ever done. I fell out of two of the high cadence intervals, which I didn't like to have to do, but they were THAT hard.

I leg pressed 385 pounds for 15 reps at the gym on Thursday. Gains!

Heathpack 

Today’s schedule called for two 30 min intervals at 105% on the TT bike.

Between yesterday’s position change, core workout and big gear work, I woke up mega sore (despite the Thai massage) (as good as it was). It’s really cold here (relatively speaking). I slept in (also relatively speaking), dithered, stretched and foam-rolled, procrastinated, then dithered some more. And eventually went out to ride.

There’s not too many places I can ride a 30 min interval once the rest of the world wakes up, so I decided to head out to Sand Canyon and Bear Divide. That’s around 10 min of 2ish% uphill grade followed by 20 min of 5% ave grade. Not wild about descending Bear Divide on the TT bike, it’s pretty technical. Added bonuses: Sand Canyon is about a hour ride from my house at warm up intensity (more procrastinating) and I could ride home after through Placerita Canyon, which is my favorite local Canyon.

So after all that dreading and procrastinating, I went out and just popped off the first 30 min 105% interval like it twern’t nothing. Decided whatever happened on interval 2, the workout was a win. Spun the legs out, had a snack and had at interval 2. My neck was super sore (exactly how it always feels after a position change), my legs were saying No. Told myself I’d be happy with 15 min at 105%, and then a few minutes later negiotiated down to 100%.

Which I managed to do. I’ll take it totally. For a miss, it feels like a win. I even celebrated with whipped cream on top of my recovery drink, lol.

But. My. Neck. Is. Sore. Sitting on my sofa with my mechnical neck massager going and my compression legs.

Something fun tomorrow.

Hermes

Back to VSC today for a real workout versus a leg opener. Our car arrived at the dealer yesterday after finally being released by the EPA. The best time to pick it up is tomorrow so we blew off LAVRA and substituted a structured track workout today.

Warmup and a couple of jumps followed by 2x3k team pursuits with my wife and then lead outs where one person leads for 4 laps and then we dive to the pole lane for a fast lap and exchange leaders.

After all the endurance work and altitude training the 2x3k (12 laps) flying team pursuits were hard but not that bad considering we had only two riders versus four. We did one lap pulls. I have not done much pursuit work in the aerobars and I was surprised how easy it was to make power. The first effort was 22.2 second laps and the second was 21.5 second laps - solid efforts with good executions.

Heathpack 

@Hermes, the long-awaited car!

(Stupid epa)

sarals 

Awesome!!! Pictures when you get a chance!

sarals 

Day off today. I slept in this morning (0630 rather than 0530). LAVRA #2 is happening, and I'm at work. I don't think I need to say how I feel about that. BJ is down there racing, so I'm checking in with her via text from time to time. I think I might go down later in the month to partake in a Sunday session and then one of the PCC Monday night sprint clinics. I haven't been on the boards in a month. I need to get down there!

Tomorrow, more strength training. Tuesday, Hellyer, if the weather cooperates.
@Heathpak, sore...I empathize! And I share your pain!

Heathpack 

Well amazingly I woke up this am and wasn’t sore at all. Wow, maybe my compression pants really do work...

Stretched for 30 min anyway, we weren’t riding until a little later (8:30) today on account of the cold, so I had the time.

Then I went out with a friend and did a 7-8 mile mtb climb, rode to the start from home so the whole thing was 22 miles/3000ish ft. It was just one of those great days on a bike. Cold and windy but sunny, so it felt kind of good. My friend was tired from a climbing ride he did yesterday, so we just took it easy. I was in HR zone 2/3 pretty much the entire time, felt sparky and could have pushed harder but it was nice not to push. Perfect leisurely Sunday ride.

We went up a fire road called The Beast, at the top is a fire camp called Camp 9. You can get there on a road ride too, so it was Cyclist Central up there when we arrived. Saw some friends, chit chatted for awhile and then coasted back home.

Part way up, the view was beautiful:



New mountain bike helmet, a Kask Rex. Wow it really fits well, I love it.

sarals 

It sure IS a beautiful view!

Hermes

@Heathpack Great pics. It was a nice day in Santa Monica but cool as well.

Okay. We picked up the car and did the paperwork. The dealer was able to purchase our car and reduce the cost of turning in my old car to the leasing company. So we unloaded all our luggage and bike and put it all in the new car. It fit perfectly.

Here is the pick of the new Porsche Cayenne S e-hybrid platinum. You can check out the car on the Porsche website if so motivated.



While we were at the dealer, we saw a new color from Porsche called "chalk". My wife fell in love with the color. I am not sure if my iPhone captured it properly and or it will show up on the computer screen but it is very unique. Below is a GT3 in chalk.

I am not sure if it appeals to men as much as women although I liked it.



We got home and we hit the gym.

Heathpack 

Nice ride, @Hermes!

45 min of stretching and foam rolling today, but otherwise a rest day

Remembered last night after I’d already changed into my pajamas that I wanted to send coach pics of the new position. Lol too chill to bother changing into cycling garb. Ignore the fuzzy slippers.

Also wondering if anyone beyond @Hermes and @sarals and myself are training for racing these days...?

Hermes

@Heathpack I can ride the ERO position but I cannot see very far ahead without putting a lot of strain in my neck when I raise my head.

My wife did a pursuit camp and but yet another aero expert was their from the Dutch national team. This guy was all about head position and the ability to turtle one heads. In their testing, they found that as soon as one lifts one head, CdA goes up...a lot. So it is better to have a higher shoulder position and learn to drop the neck while still being able to see ahead.

I have taken the approach that my safety on the road and track is more important than aero position. I have to have a position that I can see ahead far enough to be safe for the speed. Theoretically, at the track, one could limit the forward visibility if one knew for sure no one or nothing such as a start gate was on the track.

Of course, pro riders have chase cars, radios and closed roads such that visibility is less of a problem. One thing I tried at a TT was to look forward, drop my head, count to five and look up again. At a race, early in the morning, two non racers stopped to chat in the bike line. I looked up and they they were and I missed them but lightly brushed one of them. Never again will I give up forward visibility for speed.

sarals 

@Hermes, that near miss was scary. I agree with you on visibility. On the road I need to see, period. On the track, not so much. This might cause some concern from folks, but I do not wear prescription lenses when I'm racing. I see well enough to be able to handle the bike and deal with situations. What I can't do is read my Garmin or make out faces in the distance. Not an issue, really.

The car is beautiful! I DO like the chalk color, too. Chrysler had a color called "tusk" for the Pacifica minivan for the 2017 model year which I thought was just beautiful. It was very similar to Porsche's chalk.
@Heathpak, your position looks great!

I too wonder WHERE EVERYONE ELSE IS? Is our forum dying?