Hermes

Do not forget to bring back some cigars at least for your friends / business associates / clients. Dominican cigars are some of the best and can rival the Cubans.

grolby

Finally got around to doing a power test today. It hurt a lot and I was sad. Result: setting my FTP at 230, which at first was a bit disappointing. But then I looked back and I'm only down about 10w or so from where I was this time last year (technically, mid-March 2016, I didn't test for a while after that). On way, way less training. So that's actually pretty good. Since I'll be building through the period where I was stalling out last year, I should be able to get on track to end up a lot faster than last year. I hope.

miyata man

Yes. My immediate short term concern was stated as improving on this before working on maximizing 1 second to 5 minute efforts and ability to quickly recover from/ repeat said efforts. Last Saturday was the first time having a rabbit to chase on efforts of that length multiple times over the course of a ride this year. This was where I first noticed tendency to hold my breath.

Over the last two months of building form I have been targeting efforts of those lengths. Among them was 1' intervals on the rollers to develop leg speed and the ability to maintain even power (Like wktmeow's files show). Upon reflection it occurred to me this breathing issue should've been obvious during the last few efforts in sets of that workout if I had been going hard enough. It should have been equally obvious I was not referring to doing a power test or trying to set PR's on the rollers. That a slow, gradual, well thought out plan hit a hiccup I was adjusting for.

To me it appears things really started falling apart the more I zoomed in on reasons for desiring to do 15-20 weeks. Again and again I agreed it didn't make sense for the intensity of training I should be doing to succeed in crits right now. Jumping off the couch and transitioning to 25 minutes at full gas as quickly as possible is a low percentage move for long term success too. I've very clearly stated numerous times my only immediate goal is escaping the 5's safely in a district where it's now clear that will take the majority of the racing season to accomplish. 10-15 hours a week is much more realistic to be able to focus on a wide range of work without issue. By the time it actually matters I'll have race experience and fitness if it is used even halfway intelligently.

I appreciate respectfully stated questioning of anything I lay out in here. To that end I politely thanked everyone who offered an opinion in kind. Those of you who can't, or won't choose to, understand what I write should ignore it and move on. Simple as that.

miyata man

3 hours: First half doing 15"-5' efforts with tempo in between. Second half higher cadence trial pacing for over/unders.

Considering making all future training rides on strava private to eliminate leader board placing. Or just circumvent them by doing intervals where there aren't segments as much as possible.

mattm

Been riding a fixed gear while I get a real bike sorted out.

Hit 210 rpm the other day, while going down a (luckily) short hill. That was scary! I wanted to break 200, but once I did I was like "that was cool, but I'm ready to stop pedaling so damn fast now".. but the hill wasn't over. Wanted to coast so bad but couldn't.

Did a few little hills on it today (Mora & Moody for the locals). 46x19 (I think) up a 15% grade for a minute.. glad the chain didn't break! I think that was at about 30 rpm.

Anyway looking forward to some real riding again, and a race next weekend!

TheKillerPenguin

The medication I was put on is working...but it drained everything in my head back into my chest. Friday night and yesterday were pretty bad and I made the mistake of racing...but was smart enough to drop out at the end of the first lap (12mi) when it was becoming apparent that it was making everything worse. I've coughed up a ton of garbage so far today and will be spending it as forced rest EVEN THOUGH IT IS 80 OUT LIFE ISN'T FAIR. It actually does seem to be going away though, so maybe I'll actually be back to normal by the end of the week, which will be kind of novel.

Wylde06

2 windy hours this morning. Nothing special. No one showed up for the group ride this morning, which I was glad for because we would have ended up killing ourselves directly into the wind. Legs surprisingly felt pretty good. I half expected them to feel awful after racing yesterday, so thats good

TMonk

Get well soon @theKillerPenguin. @mattm are you riding with a brake?

mattm

yeah - front bmx-style brake for emergencies only. i try not to use it going downhill so that i have to use legs to slow down as much as possible.

when i was at 210 rpm everything was going so fast i was scared to move my hands around to be able to use it!

did same hill yesterday, "only" hit 198 rpm since i kept it slow at the top. 198 felt way fast but not as crazy as 210.

TMonk

nice.

mattm

Years ago I rode without a brake in downtown Seattle, which has some really steep streets. Pretty dumb!

Was lucky my chain never broke..

Before I got the brake set up on this bike I toodled around here without one, which was also dumb but way less dumb; it's mostly flat, and more suburban.

TMonk

I may have rode brakeless fixies a fair bit in college . I'm also lucky that my chain never broke.

wktmeow

Big training week for me. 830 TSS on my 'old' FTP from the power meter that was reading high, but have been on the new one since Thursday, so the actual TSS should technically be a little higher. Slowly starting to feel good again after all the weekends I've been taking off lately. Next week will probably have me doing some power tests to re-set my zones D: Testing's never fun. Then on Saturday I'm going to ride the ~95 miles or so to Disneyland from home and meet the wife & FIL there

scheibo

wanted to practice riding the TT bike but it was threatening rain so i just rode easy on the fixed gear (without a power meter! or clipless pedals!) for an hour because setting up a bike on the trainer is a hassle when everything is put away. and of course it didn't rain until later on, so i could have gone on completely normal ride if i had woken up earlier. this always happens. i don't think the rest day will kill me though.

my legs have been feeling tired so i havent run much this week and i haven't really been motivated to run at all. mattm and fudgy are probably happy to hear that, but its weird for me. i might try running tonight still for a bit, but its so hard to go out and do it when the weather is bad (especially the damn wind. wind is the worst) and your legs feel like bricks.

Wylde06

running is dumb

grolby

I know it's all in fun but I have serious respect for what it takes to truly run competitively. I sometimes think running could be an interesting alternative pursuit if I felt I didn't have time to train adequately for cycling; it wouldn't take too much time to train for a reasonable 5k, since that duration of effort is pretty much in my physiological wheelhouse. But then I remember: running is harder than I give it credit for, it's physically uncomfortable, rough on my floppy-ass feet, and I don't get gears to equalize the disadvantage of my short stature. So I figure I'll just train less if I need to. It's not like I'd get less competitive than I am already!

scheibo

running is uncomfortable for like a month, but after you do it for long enough you like it. whenever i come back from running after a layoff (which is unfortunately a regular occurrence in running) i find it pretty miserable and uncomfortable as well. hell, if you don't bike for a while the first week or two of riding is pretty terrible as well.

that said, im not trying to hype up running to anyone here. lately because of my new TT bike ive been trying to double up with both TT + road bike riding, and I find it hard to squeeze in a run as well. i have no problems doubling, but i've always found tripling a little difficult (at that point you start to spend a non trivial amount of time in showers/changing!)

Ttoc6

Didn't post last week so a little catch up..

Sat/ Sunday of last week was racing. Racked up a number of hours but I crashed at the crit on Sunday. Road rash and not much else. Took monday off to let road rash heal up a bit. Tuesday was the local weeknight hardmans ride (Mercer Island Hotlaps). I intentionally wanted to make this threshold type efforts. My power meter has been reading funny ever sine the car incident two weeks ago, but it really was hard. Wednesday/ thursday were just easy spins for an our on the rollers. Friday was openers on the rollers

Saturday and Sunday were road race / TTT/ Riding/ Crit.

CTL is 105, ATL is at 116 after this weekend. Time to start backing it down for nationals. Never done a long taper for any competition in my life. Probably going to get out for one hard ride this week. 2 Longer rides this weekend and then not much in the week leading up to collegiate nationals.

Anyone have tips on what I can be doing to prepare for racing at altitude when I don't have access to any sort of place to train at altitude or an altitude tent. Is there anything?

miyata man

Lots of water and vitamins this week. Never be without water at hand once you hit the ground there and remember the adage 'climb high, sleep low.' Even getting up into the PNW mountains a few thousand feet higher than sea level this week would help a fair amount.

Edit: Tetonrider might be able to offer more concise thoughts on this subject. Population living at below sea level to around 1800' obviously endure more severe adaptation temporarily going up to elevation. The elevation this starts at is roughly 2500'-3000'. Those living in mile high Denver (5280') or above typically can adjust to changes in altitude up to around 16K within hours instead of weeks or months. Stairstepping upwards, instead of getting off a plane from sea level and instantly driving multiple thousand feet higher, is a common technique used by alpinists.

topflightpro

I don't think two weeks is going to be enough time to do much altitude adaptation.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the air out there tends to be very dry, which can quickly lead to dehydration. So, just make sure you are drinking plenty of fluids, on and off the bike. Also, keep an eye out for salting. When it's dry like that, your sweat will evaporate almost immediately. It can seem like you aren't even sweating, but you are. The white salt lines on your clothes are a sign you've lost a lot of water to sweat.

And have fun. My wife is taking her collegiate team out there as well. They leave next Monday.

johnybutts

5 hrs last week for 390 TSS. Just aiming for consistency here.

revchuck 

Looks like it's coming up slowly.

mike868y

I had planned on collegiate nats but it's looking like I'll probably skip it. Besides the fact that I might not be able to go even if I wanted to (qualify is relatively competitive in our conference this year), it's a big money/time commitment I don't necessarily have right now.

hack

Put etap on the bike this weekend. Pretty cool group-set. A bit slower than the mechanical red I had before, but not a hindrance by any means. The downer of the day was breaking a spoke some 20 miles into the ride and limping home afterward.


Just about 700 TSS and 9 hours for the week. Need to race soon, it's been almost a month.

topflightpro

TSB is at -28.9, and I have two, maybe three, days of racing planned for this week. I'm not expecting spectacular performances.

Also, I think I'd be feeling better if I could get a decent night's sleep. I don't remember the last time I got a good night in. I'm continually tossing and turning and going back and forth between being too hot and being too cold. The last two nights, I just got out of bed to sleep on the floor. I started sleeping in the guest room about a year ago because my fitful sleeping was keeping my wife awake too.