fini

My season's done. This has been brewing since nats...a little voice in the back of my head that kept getting louder. My good form kept the riding pretty fun but last weekend I cracked and after the tnwc I knew it was time to hang it up.

I'll have a more in depth retrospective post about this year later when I haven't had a few beers. This year I pushed through to a new level of fitness and it was the most fun I've ever had on a bike. Going fast is fun. No doubt about it.

Last year I didn't ride at all for over 2 months after nats because of a huge construction project on my house. This year I'm going to try to do at least 400TSS a week as maintenance. We'll see...it will take a long time to bleed off my 80 CTL so I should have some pretty good form for quite a while.

Weekend

Saturday Karl, Crusty and I did a long "flat" ride...we motored out bluff to 601 then turned around and made our way to the Gmart then in...about 60 miles and I hit my lap button on each pull and did 10' for each one at around my FTP. Great fast ride and I was riding pretty strong...karl of course was killing it too.

Today I didn't ride...too many house projects I've been ignoring and sleep I needed to get. I did motorpace LL in the afternoon. I don't think I've ever seen his face contorted in pain like that. I just kept turning the screw...It was fun being on the other end of the moto.

This week I'm gonna do a hard monday-tuesday block then chill for the races this weekend.

200 TSS Thursday

With French Broad coming up I wanted to hit some Vo2 intervals again so I did 4x4' at 120% before the group ride. Felt strong. The weather was iffy so not many people showed but that was fine cuz I wanted to get some more V02 efforts in. We pretty much motored with Karl, Paul and Kevin killing it. It's a lot easier to ride at 130% of FTP with a few strong guys on your wheel.

After the taper week for Nats my CTL's back on the upswing and TSB's back to negative.

Tonight I'm gonna tow Ella around at the beer ride then tomorrow it looks like I'm riding solo.

tnwc slugfest

Last night I went to the tnwc with one purpose...to ride as hard as possible. A few others had the same idea so it was one of the hardest crits of the year. Instead of attacking and then recovering I just went with every break I could and got pretty fried. I knew I wouldn't win the sprint so when Jay led it out I jumped after turn 3 to make it interesting and made it t0 200m to go before detonating.

data purge

For the geeks:

The Road Race
crazy high IF and NP for the race


For reference, last years race:


The Crit
surprisingly low NP but look at the graph...lots and lots of 400-600w sprints

Pics

See the soon to be ripped off leg tattoo (and nice "tribal" arm ring...ballin!) Some more photo's HERE

Master's Nats Crit @ Churchill Downs

Last night I slept like crap...I was wired and a bit nervous about the race today.  My race was at 11:30 so there was no rush in the morning.  I got there at around 10am and had a really good warmup then put the race wheels on and did some laps on the course.

I had to stop to get some tattoo's put on that I promised my daughter...then it was to the line.  The course was a 1/2 mile with most of the turns rounded so you could sort of pedal through them and turn 4 was weirdly banked and fast...about 65 guys started and we did 62 laps.

I'll tell you it was balls out fast and hard from the gun...and really never let up.  There were some lulls here and there but for the most part it was just crazy fast.  I saw more pedal strikes in corners than I care to remember but the group was really smooth and well behaved.

I tried to stay *near* the front but that meant about midpack.  A break of 5 guys eventually got away and held about a 20" gap.  Around the last third of the race I started feeling really good and started moving up and looking for an opportunity to go across to the break.  One guy who I was watching was the Kelly Benefits guy who Jay was chasing with on Tuesday...I knew he was strong so when he attacked, me and another dude went with him and chased.  The field eventually caught us and the gap then was only about 5 seconds and I gambled that the gap would close...Nope.  I was a little fried at that key moment and *should* have tried to bridge right then...but couldn't, and the gap went back out to 20".

At this point with 10 laps to go it was just looking like a field sprint for 6th...things started getting a bit argy-bargy and people were taking more risks to get to the front.  With 2 to go I had moved up to about 15th wheel...exactly where I wanted to be.  Then all I know is that when we were flying through turn 3 the guy to my left got in trouble and going down...I just hoped I'd sneak through but he slid out right in front of me and I slammed into him.  Luckily I landed on his bike (with him under it) so I wasn't hurt that bad but the race for me was over.

I did get up and ride the last 2 laps to finish the race...with rash down my left leg (ripping my new leg tattoo off!) and chain grease covering my entire left arm.  Whadda ya gonna do?  Later someone said a lapped rider caused the crash...I have no idea.  Now, 9 hours later I pretty sore and stiff.  Nothing a hand full of ibu and a few beers won't cure.

So I'm a bit bummed at the result but I am satisfied with how I felt and how I rode the race.  I was as aggressive as I think I could have been considering how hard it was and I was positioned where I wanted to be at the end.  

I'll do a post with some wattage numbers of both races when I get back to Columbia.

Ok...back to racing

After Tuesday's race I took Wed off hanging at the TT course with LL.  On Thursday Julie and I did a 2:15 ride where I did the first hour at tempo then followed her wheel the last hour.  The legs felt awesome and it was very hard not to ride harder (that's why I just sat on after a while).  

Today I went out for an hour and did a few opener type efforts...30-45 seconds at 150%.  Again incredibly good leg sensations...felt like I was just floating.  Very nice.  I took a huge 2.5hr nap this afternoon then hung out at the pool with the kids for a while just laying around in the shade.

I'm ready for tomorrows crit.  60% chance of rain...should be fun.  No expectations...just want to ride hard and be aggressive.

some thoughts...

Here's some random thoughts on the nats RR...

I saw some very "un masters-like" riding...a guy would accidentally get chopped a bit in a corner then he'd accelerate and try to throw an elbow at the dude or cut his wheel...crazy road rage type stuff. This happened 3 times...the last in the final 1k of the race.

Gordon Stihl had a horrendous crash on a super fast off camber turn where he followed a guy into a bad line...that guy lost it, took Gordon out and he went catapulting off the side of the road down an embankment and into the trees. It was so bad I was yelling at the next course marshal to get an ambulance. He's OK...just banged up and very lucky.

The "feed" zone was on a climb...but one we'd hit at 25+ mph. Carnage. I never saw one person actually get a feed, just bottles flying everywhere. Not that you needed one in a 50 mile RR with 80˚ weather.

Here's a pic someone sent Crusty...shows me (#1015) rolling in for 19th behind an ex-postal rider Clark Sheehan at top and Korioth in the middle.

TT: Ladd put in a great ride today getting 9th. Here's his START and FINISH on YouTube.

Masters Nats RR

My race today was at a reasonable 11am...lots of sleep and a casual morning then we headed down to the Cherokee Park course.  LL and Ryan's race was at 8 so they had already gone and raced by the time we got there.  Charlie, Jay and I did a lap warmup then lined up with 90+ other riders.  The field wasn't your typical 35+ group as you had hard men from across the country flying in for a shot at the national championship.  Everyone was strong and fast.

For me I had a good start position and had decided to just roll along for the first few laps and try to stay in good position.  The race was 50 miles...ten 5 mile loops.  I really felt good the first half of the race...the climbs were "easy" to me and I could pretty much go where I wanted.  Last year on the one grunt hill I climbed it in my small chainring but this year had no problem big ringing it.  Again...I felt really, really good.

The course was very crit like with lots of hard off camber high speed corners...I was a bit tentative on some of the harder corners at first and was content to just close the gap but later in the race I decided to just bomb the corners with everyone else and hope my Vittoria's held.  They were super good, sticky tires.

There was constant attacking so the pace was pretty high most of the race.  Finally a group of about 9 got away.  Lots of cat and mouse ensued then Jay and another dude got away.  The only thing I did at this point was to mark last years winner, John Korioth (Lance's "college" buddy).  So when he attacked I would follow.  

The second to last lap was pretty brutal and it took just about all I had to stick with the now small field over the last climbs...I realized that I could go hard and burn some matches to stay near the front as there was a long descent to recover before the final 1k finishing climb.

On the last lap Jay was close to making contact with the break but on the run in to the finish most of the break took a wrong turn and just continued on another loop (the start/finish was off on a side road).  It was a really bone head move...I guess some official was waving lapped riders off the course but it really is the responsibility of the rider to know when the finish is!  So the result was Jay got 7th insted of 11th...for a while we thought he had gotten 2nd.  That would have been pretty crazy.

My goal for the last lap was to stay on Korioth's wheel and that's just what I did.  He attacked on the 2nd to last climb and I let him go but got his wheel back shortly after.  On the last climb to the finish he gave me a great lead out and I got 19th.  My legs were totally cramping at the end but I just powered through it...I wasn't about to slow down.

Overall I felt awesome, had the usual few bad moments but finished about as well as I could have hoped considering the dynamics of the race.  I've totally happy with the result.  My NP for the 2 hours was 277w or about 98% of my FTP!   Ave speed was 25.1mph on a very hilly course. 

Full results HERE

My training for this race was totally spot on...those 1' intervals were perfect and on nearly every climb I would say to myself "this is not as hard as training at the crit course"  so I was really prepared physically.  Mentally I was relaxed and confident.  I knew I could ride with these guys and when it turned out to be easier than last year that was a big boost.  

All for now...Nats Crit on Saturday and I'm gonna be super aggressive!

taper, taper, taper

This week has been pretty chill for me. Did the TNWC and felt really good but forced myself to just sit in till the last 15' then I looked for a chance to win...didn't happen but I had great leg sensations, pretty much felt like I could rip the cranks off.

Wed: easy loop in the fort

Thursday : Did 30' tempo on the erg at work.

Friday: Got up early and did my last structured "workout" 4x4' Vo2, then 4x1' at level 6 (got about 96TSS in 1:18). The legs didn't feel all that great this morning but I wasn't really trying to kill it, it was actually an easy workout to get through at the lower intensities...even though it was cool, it was muggy and I'm not exactly a morning person.

I did mount and ride my Vittoria's w/latex and man those suckers can fly (but they are a total bitch to put on...back in the day vittoria's were scary easy to get on a rim, not anymore)

Right now my CTL's at 85, TSB's +5 and I'm headed to Louisville tomorrow morning.

The art of the taper

2 points I wanna make with this post...my prep related to last year and my planned taper for nats.

The prep: Last year at this time I was at a CTL of 67 and tapered down to the low 60's for the race. This year I'm at 90 and will taper down to 81. A big, big difference. Here's a comparison of the last 28 days of 08 and 09...notice all the yellow in 08 (or +TSB). I think I was burnt out before nats last year and had a mental let down at the beginning of June when I needed to be killing it. This year after my forced break due to a crash and broken rib in April I was ready to really hit it going into May and June. It's all there in the #'s (also look at the ATL days above 90tss/d this year).


The taper: I've given this a lot of thought and research and decided on a one week taper with less than 10 tss/d loss of CTL. I'm not planning on hanging up the bike this year (like I did last year...for 3 months!). So I don't want to lose too much fitness but I want to go into the races in Louisville as fresh as possible. A taper doesn't mean just sitting on the couch either, I'm planning on doing the tnwc (sitting in till the last part) then another day of SST/Vo2 intervals (dialing back the time/number and staying at the low end of the wattage target). I'll also throw in some longer easier rides. My plan is HERE. And this is a predictive chart that spells out the numbers:


Lastly I'm working on my victory salute...do I rock the baby with a ring kiss? double arms pointing to the sky? blow kisses to the crowd? It's so hard to choose the perfect one...(do I really need to put a smiley here?)

Sunday motorpace

Had an easy start to the day cuz my dtr wanted to make me breakfast...in bed, for fathers day. Didn't feel too bad from yesterday and was stoked to get out and ride hard behind the scooter.

Hooked up with my trusty driver, nutty and we headed down Bluff Rd at around 10:30. I planned 30' out and back. Going out we had a bit of a tailwind and were really motoring at around 34mph...I wanted to be above threshold and gave The Nut the green light to work me over. He delivered and can pretty much tell by now when I'm dying. Coming in I had him keep it at 25mph and I attacked the scooter a few times then struggled to get back on...that really finished me off. An awesome workout that isn't anything spectacular from a wattage standpoint but I'm always trashed afterwards...took a rare nap and chilled the rest of the day.

and that concludes my masters nats prep...

Hot Saturday

Blythewood Loop with the PV boyz. Muggy as hell at the 7am start but once the sun came out it was just "hot" which was bearable. At one point I hit something and my wet hand slipped off the bars...should have crashed, 7 lives left.

Rode hard and felt stronger as the day went on and felt great at the end...Peak? Feels that way. Life is good. CTL's hovering at 90 and TSB is only -10ish.

V-oh-two

Got out and did 5x4' at 330w. Was gonna do the group ride too but flatted, my tube had a short valve stem so I called for a pickup...no matter cuz the weather turned bad. I was gonna take an easy day tomorrow but since I didn't get all the TSS I wanted tonight I think I'll go do some L6 at the crit course after work. Long ride saturday, motorpace sunday and I'm done.