TNWC tibco edition

The 6 Tibco girls showed up tonight and really lit it up. They were definitely racing hard and to win. The locals were throwing spears but there was just too much HP out tonight for a break to stay away. I raced hard and the first 20' my NP was 292w (IF 1.03). With 3 to go Crusty & Tibco took to the front and I said "Uh-oh" and started looking around for help then just settled onto the back of the train.

In the back of my mind I thought that the girl who's wheel I was on didn't look like a sprinter and Brook Miller (current US road AND crit National Champ) was just ahead of her. Around turn 3 they lit it up and we flew around turn 4. Brook then attacked with about 300m to go & the girl in front of me sat up...my first thought was "I'm screwed" as Miller got a huge gap. She won the Athen Twilight in exactly the same way 4 days ago.

Jamie from Harrells jumped HARD from behind me and I managed to get his wheel then as we caught Miller I came around both of them for the win. It was one of those "planets align" sort of wins. Very fun.

The race tonight was the fastest of the year at 26.4 mph, my NP was 275w and IF was .98

SST

45' at around 90% today...legs didn't feel too bad, I didn't expect much. My scooter is up and running and ready for some motorpacing. Crusty's gonna take it out with the 6 Tibco girls tomorrow morning then they're all coming to do the TNWC. That should be interesting. I'm gonna have the video camera running...

Tour de Moore RR

Lesson #1: A $1000 worth of GPS's is worthless unless you actually look at it.

Lesson #2-4: If you're gonna do a hard 70mile RR in 90+˚ heat...take a freakin' 3rd water bottle, wear some sunscreen you idiot! And wear gloves so your hands don't go completely numb.

Lesson #5: People around you are suffering just like you.

Ok...After driving lost for 3 hours we parked for the race about 9 minutes before it started. That was fun. Luckily it started out very mellow...I actually asked LL "are we neutral?" so we at least got a chance to warm up our stiff-ass legs before all hell broke loose.

Things slowly got animated and I was able to ride near the front to keep an eye on things. I felt pretty good starting out but knew I needed to conserve A LOT to make it to the end. The field was pretty stacked with lots of youngish 30+ Cat 1 types who we never race against.

Pretty early in the race LL got away with 4 others...I kind of missed that and had to ask Jay where he was as I figured he was hanging out at the back as usual ;-). Jay and I moved up to the front to cover attacks. I rode a fair bit of tempo on the front to keep the chase mellow. At one point I covered an attack (waited way too long to go after it, stupid move on my part) then there were hard counter attcks and the field exploded just as we got caught...man that double effort really, really hurt (380w ave for 3 min...Ouch!)

When the gap to LL got to about 1:40 Jay said he would try to get away by countering an attack and that's exactly what happened as he got a gap with a few guys and that turned into a group of 7 or so.

At this point...at about mile 50 I had a complete meltdown.

Legs completed cramped...both hamstrings and quads. I was off the back and out of water, I stretched a bit and luckily there were 3 others who had gotten dropped who towed me back up to the field. Thanks!

I spent the next 15 miles in total survival mode. I could ride steady but if there was a surge or attack I would instantly cramp. That sucked and I did not want to lose contact with the field or I would still be riding out there in the backwoods of NC. Looking around at the other riders--it was pretty brutal...people looked BAD. Luckily right then the group just totally shut down...we rode real, real slow (well, 20mph). That was the longest 15 miles of my life! I finished and felt awful.

LL got 4th and Jay 10th and they both went threw their own personal hell...I'll post links to their race reports when they're up. Update: Ladd, Jay

pre race thingy

Went out for an hour today to stretch the legs...nothing fancy just a spin with some short hardish efforts thrown in. Excited yet apprehensive about tomorrows race. We're racing "30+" so that means every P,1,2 who isn't in Athens will be there. Should be fast & hard. I'll be in full domestic mode since I'm a little off...but if I'm feeling good I'll take a crack at getting up the road.

"the only true predictor of performance is performance itself"

Not my best effort

I felt ok tonight but didn't really have my head in the game...missed the break and couldn't get it together to bridge. Just felt flat. Oh well...just gotta stick with the plan and keep plugging along with the intervals. Next big goal is masters nats, July 4th.

a quickie

I'm trying to get a house project done so I had one hour to ride tonight...I busted over to the crit course and did 40' at 92% FTP. I'm still pretty tired from Saturday so this will be a transition day till the crit tomorrow.

the shocker

Sometime you need a good shock to the system to kick things in gear. Today I went out with LL and Jay, MD & Justin for 76 miles. We averaged 22 mph so there was no messing around, no talking--it was pretty much staring at the wheel ahead of you for 3:30. I think the weather was nice and it was probably pretty scenic out there but I remember very little about this ride except trying to keep pressure on the pedals.

I felt pretty average today and not so great at the beginning...then started to find my groove. For me it was one of those days where sitting in at 220w sucked at times, but pulling at 300w felt good. Mental. Glad today's over with but really glad I did it.

Vo2

I wanted a big TSS day so I headed to tank hill and did 4 x 4' VO2 intervals at around 115%. These went well then it was time to hook up with the thursday group ride. The trouble was there was no group. 5 guys rolled up and we headed out of the fort.

I was really wanting to ride hard and be pushed but someone decided to do the shortened version and everyone was just tooling along until The Nut said to me "you wanna ride hard?" So we took off and this sparked the rest of the guys to chase and we all kept hammering along pretty much all the way back. It turned out to be a good workout (180 TSS). Gonna rest tomorrow then ride with LL & Jay on Sat.

2x20's

Tonight I had no grand plans other than to do some threshold work. I would have been happy with 95% but once I got going the watts just flowed and I felt pretty awesome. I did right at 284w for each 20' interval (my FTP may be due to be bumped a couple watts). My CTL went from tickling 90 two weeks ago to 66 today...That's pretty disappointing and means I've got a lot of work ahead of me.

TNWC

I felt pretty good tonight, I'm back to pretty much 90+%. The race started out pretty mellow for the first 15' or so then people decided to race. It was pretty standard tuesday night fare until Jay and LL ended up 10 seconds off the front with 20' to go.

For the first little bit of the chase I sort of just sat back and watched and really thought we'd catch them but looking at my speedometer I knew it was gonna take some HP to bring them back. You gotta be going 28 mph to close a gap like that esp when they're going 26 mph. GW and I moved to the front to chase and were taking some monster pulls (along with others) and we'd claw our way back to within 5 seconds of them then there'd be a hesitation or someone pulling at 24 and they'd regain those seconds. Back and forth. Everyone in the pack was killing themselves tonight to chase so that was cool and Tom gave a suicidal last pull to get us pretty close on the final stretch.

The race had been called as 45' +2 so I didn't even know the race was over when LL and Jay sat up...I thought there was another lap to go and wish we could have caught them at the end cuz that would have been a really fun finish with everyone totally gassed. No matter, good workout.

Recon

Today Jules and I went out to Cherokee park and rode some laps of the masters nats road course.  I was feeling great...standing, sprinting etc with no pain so I did 5 hill repeats on the steepest, most selective climb on the course.  

I mainly wanted to get more familiar with this part of the route as it really hurt last year and mentally I wanted to be better prepared.  That said, in looking at the map for this year it's possible that they're gonna run the race in the opposite direction (I should know for sure soon).  

update: same direction as last year but they moved the start/finish to the spot on this map.  This is actually a good thing for me I think...ends on sort of a climb.

It was a great day to be riding and I'm psyched to get back on the program™

I'm back

Got out today and felt good.  It took a while to get the kinks out but was able to motor after a while.  I can still feel the rib floating around in there but at least it's not nearly as painful as it was.  Standing is still not the greatest and sprinting a no go but that will come.  Did 2.5 hrs.  Tomorrow I'm gonna hook up with some local riders for 3 hrs.

dx

Had an x-ray today to basically just confirm what I already knew...broken 7th rib. A nice jagged break. Now that the swelling has gone down it's pretty weird feeling it move around and clunk/pop as I breath in and out...it's a fun party trick.

I'm still taking it easy...gonna just chill for a while till the pain is less (and today it's a lot less...I'm sneezing again without seeing stars). This weekend I'm headed to KY and will take the bike to see if I can get out and start riding again.

wkend update

no ridin' for me.

LL got 5th in what seemed like a bloodbath at Rock Hill. Aaron broke his "new" custom, one of a kind 6-13 frame in a crash in the 4's race.

I spent the weekend doing house & kid projects...some pretty easy stuff until I tried to use my pneumatic framing nailer. That hurt.

I'll get on the trainer tomorrow or try to get some form of exercise.

no go

Went out tonight and the ribs were just too painful to really ride hard so i just spun around for 45'. This really sucks...I need to not think about my bike for a few days.