CSC

Casey's racing Sunday in the CSC invitational with the Aaron's pro womans team...Not bad for your first year as a cyclist. Good Luck!

Tour de LR

Good fast group ride tonight...some new N.E. faces. One bad crash for a young kid when his hand slipped off the bars during a downhill sprint...I was right behind him and saw it all, no broken bones but probably should have been. He hit hard, total yard sale. He learned a painful lesson...he's a strong rider but he's gotta stay in the saddle.

Coming down airbase was fun...about 6 of us flogging it. I gave Marc W a great leadout to the sprint (not by plan).

At the end of the ride I did a 3:30 effort at VO2...about 330w and it felt good. It's time to start the dreaded 6x5' intervals.

TNWC #12

Wow...it's not even june yet and we've been doing the TNWC for 3 months! Time for a road race in the fort...stay tuned!

Last nights race started out fast and stayed that way for about 18'...I just sat in waiting for it to slow down and the inevitable attacks to start. There wasn't that big of a group and everyone was riding hard so no breaks stuck.

On the last lap I told Lang I would lead him out to counter the derek factor but in the end that wasn't necessary and Lang won anyway. I found derek's wheel...surprise, surprise (he was riding his track bike and was a bit over or under geared...not sure but he didn't have his usual mojo) and my sprint totally sucked. Oh well...I burned some Kj and had a good time.

no show

I all ready to go out and kill it on saturday...then I got a call from work, then I remembered that I was "on call" Grrrrrrr (not that I had to work but that some other lazy ass called in "sick"...plus Ella has strep throat and I was up all night with her). Oh well...

I'm painting my house...yes the whole damn thing...in 3 days, so my riding will be sparse for the next little while. I'm gonna try to at least get out for some shorter workouts.

the usual

The thursday group ride went by the script tonight. Fast riding in the usual places. We started out pretty mellow...EZ paceline stuff but when we hit the airbase "hill" it was karl, lang and me lined up and we rolled away. Nothing surprising there.

Lang was not his usual self tonight so I kept attacking him (...nice guy that I am) to see if I could get rid of him before the sprint...no dice, but he had nothing left to contest it...and we all know that Karl can climb with Hincapie but doesn't have a fast twitch fiber in his body.

Despite the lingering "clutch-calf" pain...I had great legs tonight. My scoot is back up and running so I should heal up soon.

Dx

My weird left calf pain has a cause...this week I've been driving our POS toyota corolla to work (cuz my scooter has a flat...long story). And it's a................5 speed. Yes, I've got "clutch calf". You'd think that riding 10,000 miles a year would make me a bit more durable...I'm a one trick pony.

TNWC #11

I haven't done the download yet but tonights crit was good. Fast with lots of attacks as usual. I did an opener on the first lap to stretch the legs and they felt good. I pulled off and Lang attacked taking a couple with him. This was good cuz I could chill at the back and wait for the chase to do it's thing.

After a couple laps we caught him and I rolled off the front in the left gutter...Jamie saw me go and came along. Francisco bridged and we settled into a good 12+ minute break. The "catch" consisted of a chase group of about 12 people...the group was totally shattered tonight. People were all over the course. Carnage.

After that I started having a little left calf cramp/pain...it didn't do anything but annoy me. I bridged/attacked a few more times then settled in for the "sprint". With 2 to go I was in my usual place...on Derek's wheel but decided that there was no way in hell I was going to out sprint him with a massive tailwind up the final stretch. So I freelanced it...attacked on the backside...went up to Lang who had a small gap, but he was dead then just hopped onto Toby as he led it out and I did a 300m "sprint/leadout". Yes...Derek won...bastard!

Solo EZ

Had to work till noon today then I just cruised the Crusty Loop and added some, total of 3:30. Awesome day out there, it went by quick. My new plan is to cut down the volume and start increasing the intensity a bit and see what happens. Most of the cool people are headed to the mtns tomorrow...so I get to stay here.

cruise

The rain threatened but the group ride went on. Me, Lang, Dean, Joel, Kevin, Francisco. I figured with a small group that riding at threshold was the way to go so I spend a lot of time on the front just cruising and I tried to keep us all together.

I went hard enough for it to be hard but not to drop anyone. PE was low, legs felt good. A fun, fast ride with good numbers.

not quite there

After a killer weekend riding in KY I felt all puffed up and thought I could go out and nail an FTP workout. Not quite. In the 2 hour ride I did manage 40' at about 272w but it wasn't easy. I'm actually pretty pleased with how it turned out. It's harder than I had planned on going.

BH's comment and youtube link below got me thinking of how much espresso I drink and I remembered that my Saeco has a digital shot counter...So since January 2006 I've consumed 4,583 shots of espresso. That's about 35 Gallons worth...Yes, I'm wide awake!

South

Jules and I did 2 hrs today before we pile into the car. After the
legs got warmed up I felt great rode a lot of tempo...and J got killed
by crosswinds.

---Sent from my iPhone---

Thrashed

89 miles and not one of them was flat (very rolling terrain).  4:30 and would have been 5:30 but I had to call jules to come get me so we would make it for dinner.

A 15 minute shower and we're off to a Cuban restraunt to put a dent in my 3000kj deficit. I did eat a fig newton on the ride.  ;-)

It was an awesome day on the bike: the legs felt very, very good.  Right now I'm very, very fried.

Testing

Trying some iPhone blogging'...did 2 hrs today with Jules.

KY

Heading to Louisville for 5 days...gonna try to get some long days in and preview the masters nats road course.

TNWC #9

Another good crit tonight. Lots of attacking and chasing. Before the race I told myself to just chill tonight and sit in...that lasted the neutral lap.

At about 15' in Damon and someone else had a good gap--the Harrells boys were massing at the front so I launched across to them. I took one hard pull and then it was just me and Damon (sorry brah)...we were really flogging it in that break. I had an NP of 305w for those 12' we were away. A Sufferfest.

Multiple attacks/chases followed then it all looked like a field sprint at the end. I decided to organize a lead out for Brian. I put Ladd in front of me with Brian on my wheel. Halfway down the back stretch I told Ladd to GO! so we'd be first through the last couple of turns...he drilled it through turns 3 and 4 (with me yelling at him...Faster! --I can be a real ass sometimes ;-) I took over just after turn 4 and buried it until 50m to go and Brian easily won by a couple of bike lengths. It's nice when it all works out.

I got the new steel Powertap axle installed and it really made a difference in the feel of my back wheel. No more brake rub noodle-ness. It's solid. Sweet.

Sunday

Steady ride today. I did 2 hours of "hard" riding...basically SST keeping things below threshold, then I cruised easy for an hour. I played "guess the wattage" throughout the ride and was generally right on, sometimes low (which is good). My PE was back to normal and I felt pretty good.

I'm gonna be installing a steel axle in my Powertap today. Hopefully that will cure the lateral flex of the aluminum one. Slipstream runs steel in all their PT wheels. It's about 5 oz more weight.

post peak blues

Did the group ride today and tried to be in the wind a lot. Mostly tempo riding with a few efforts thrown in. I tried to take 5-8min pulls at around 250-280w. My PE was on the high side.

In my very brief racing career I've always had trouble doing a double peak in a year. Mostly that was due to no big events in June/July/Aug and lack of motivation after the early spring races and being burnt-out on traveling.

This year is working out better. We've got a solid team to travel with (which makes a huge difference) and I've got a goal to be flying by July 4th. I've got 8 weeks to get there.

I'm feeling a bit flat right now after the recent races and have been looking back to my January workouts to get a plan for the next few weeks. It will be lots of SST and threshold work then I'll start adding in Level 5-6 later in May. June will be big mtn rides, more volume/intensity then I'll do some form of taper (7-10 days) for July 3rd. At least that's the plan...

7 deadly sins

Alex S. just put up a very good description of Functional Threshold Power: what it is and how to determine yours. Check it out.

I'm still in EZ mode. Gonna do a loop after work then start riding harder this weekend. I'm feeling much, much better but maybe that's the 4 shots of espresso I just drank.

And The Foals have been in heavy rotation on my iPod. Check em out.