Missed Crit

I couldn't make it out to have Karl and Perry pound on me for an hour...instead of a good solid workout I ate around 3500cal at MoMo's Bistro with my parents who were in town. Things should get back to normal tomorrow. The tour sure has been rockin'......Carbon meet dog--->

A rare ride...

I finally got out today. Did 58 miles with the group and it was mostly mellow paceline stuff. A week off being sick can make a rough transition back to riding but I felt pretty good today...I couldn't really push too much past threshold but didn't really want to either. The plan is to do a solid 2 weeks of hard training to try to get back some kind of form. We'll see. Right now my TSB is through the roof.

Saris has a pretty good series of Tour power related video's with Alan Lim and R. Ventura HERE. You gotta enter your email address to view em. I thought the one about w/kg was good.

Also some great video's from Velonews HERE. My favorites were Chris Horner talking about getting a slice of pizza from the Saunier Duval Car and today's winner Linus Gerdemann saying:

"On zee last K of zee climb, ees vas zooo long und I vas fighting zooo long und I vas always looking at my SRM and zee vatts vas always going down, down, down..."

Also Dave Z's got a lot of good stuff. funny shit.

How do you rate?

Still no riding for me...I'm not feeling 100% and don't want to push it. One thing I gotta make sure of is that I don't get too used to just taking naps after work...sure is nice though!

I found the power file for Christian Vandevelde for today's stage...You can download it HERE. It's pretty cool to see as he did a ton of work today. His FTP is 370w and he weighs 152lbs...that's some crazy shit! To put that in perspective since I basically weigh the same as him--at his threshold wattage I would last under 3 minutes before I died. And today his NP of 306w for 5 hours is what I could hold for maybe 30min (a hard tuesday crit is NP 280w for 50min). Damn...

Here's the description of the file from the WKO+ guys:

An incredibly hilly stage in the last 2 hours, and a chase to keep Cancellara in the yellow jersey, Christian was on the front a lot today in the 2nd half of the race.

After the usual first 22 minutes spent at mach speed, the peloton relaxed a bit and Christian got to spend a couple of hours hanging out before having to push hard. Those first 22minutes were indeed difficult as Christian averaged 358watts normalized for the time.

At the 60 mile mark is when he had to earn his pay though, and for the next 30 minutes, he rides just below his FTP. When you examine this section of the race, you'll find that this is an incredibly hilly part of the race and many of the times that he's pedaling, he's pedaling at this Level 5 & 6 or Vo2 max and Anaerobic Capacity wattage. Compared to the stage on Tuesday where he only spent 7% of the entire race in level 5 & 6, he more than doubles that percentage in today's race.

Once his work is done for the team and putting Cancellara in the front group, Christian is popped from the peloton going up the La Croix d' Liberation and he shuts it down for the day and cruises to the finish 11:15 down on Pozzato.

The question that I am wondering is whether or not Christian is as fit as he was last Tour. Based on today's file, I am going to claim that he's not as fit as he was last year. Last year, he had many rides where he averaged over 380 watts for extended periods. With the hard chase today and then him blowing up on the last climb, I am revising his FTP to 370 watts, down from 380.

energy

forget gatorade...I need some of THIS

sicko

I came down with a nasty headcold on the way back from KY (thanks Chris & Karl) so I've been taking some time off the bike and generally just taking it easy. I may skip the Crit if I'm not feeling any better. I had planned a break around this time so it all works out...I'll start ramping it up again next week.

CTL's a risin'

Did 2 1/2 hrs with Jules today and the legs felt incredibly good. Effortless 230w for long stretches. It's amazing what the difference in recovery is with a CTL of 78 TSS/d as opposed to 50. More of the same tomorrow...

The Cogganism rings true: "the more you train, the more you can train"

the data

Here's the graph and numbers for the July 4th ride...nothing that spectacular or interesting to speak of, just a big day and some big TSS numbers. Today I slept till 10:30 then took an afternoon nap. That was nice.

Tomorrow Jules and I are gonna do 3 hrs through some horse farm country between Louisville and Lexington. There's some stellar riding up here.

2:53

The Fab 4th ride was today so it meant a 4:20am wake up and drive to Tryon, NC. Thank you Jittery Joes Espresso Blend...

500 or so people started the ride this morning and the first 15 miles felt like a Cat. 5 race...I was totally gripped with people swerving, dropped chains & bottles and a general high degree of sketchy-ness. I made my way to the front and sat about 20th wheel for the rest of the day...that was much better.

The TSB don't lie and I felt incredibly good today. When we got to the lake Jay and another dude took off and when they got out of sight the pace dropped considerably...one major factor was the guy in the break with Jay was on the same team as some of strongest guys there (Bianchi--Boyd's team) so they didn't do any chasing. So the lake loop felt relatively easy. One nice thing about staying near the front here is there's no accordian effect around the whoop-de-do's and you can go fast through the turns (thanks to karl for that advice).

Over Camp "Old Indian" I stayed with the front group and just cruised along until the watershed. Once we turned uphill I tried to be in a position behind Boyd and his boyz because I knew he would drop the hammer and I at least wanted to be near the front. He set a moderate tempo for the first half then drilled it. I lost contact with the 20 or so Cat 1-2 types and just kept climbing at my own pace. People were getting shelled right and left.

Funny...once I got dropped a Mini Cooper came crawling by with 3 guys "motorpacing" (if you want to call it that at 12mph!). Of course I jumped on the train and he pulled us up for 5-10 minutes until a final steep spot popped me again.

I got over the watershed just as a group of 10 riders caught me (with Toby S. and Jamie from Harrells). Man, that's a fun descent...I got on the front and drilled it...then just sat in the back for the last couple of fast miles. Jay finished second at 2:49 and I came in at 2:53 and overall I'm pretty happy with the way I rode. Karl was sick so he just rode along then waited for Chris at the watershed. A healthy Karl today would have made a big difference in my comfort level! (and the outcome)

The Fab 4th ride is great but it's even better due to the nice lunch (and Cokes!) they provide at the end and the showers, massages etc. Lot's of Columbia folks were there today as usual, and it was nice to hang out after the ride. I'll be in Louisville till Sunday (those 5 hours sitting in the car didn't feel too good...).

Monday

Went and did a loop in the fort today...an easy hour and a half. The legs didn't feel that great but came around at the end. I'm gonna skip the crit this week and just do an hour with some openers, usual stuff. The bad news is that Karl's sick and most likely isn't gonna ride on Wed, that sucks as it's nice to have people around that you know. On the other hand that's one less person to drop the hammer on the watershed!

The PMC chart is updated through today....

Saturday

It was tough rolling out of bed this morning. A freak lightning storm came though last night keeping us awake. Today was all about just getting some easy miles in...3.5 hours at a very easy pace. We don't do that too often during the summer, it was a nice ride. 2 hours at the pool with E and too many beers at the Disco's and I'm ready to crash...no riding for me on Sunday.

Thursday Night

I was looking for a hard ride...one that I really suffered and had to dig deep. That's not easy to achieve sometimes on a big group ride so I softened myself up a bit by doing 3x5min VO2 intervals @ 115% of FTP before the ride. That did the trick! Tonight really hurt (bad). I tried to ride aggressively and attacked in the normal spots but the legs just sometimes would not go. I'm glad I didn't do the 4 intervals I was planning...I would have gotten dropped!

3 beers at El Burrito's Bluegrass night got me right. Now it's taper time for the 4th of July ride...this weekend is gonna be chill.

A tale of 3 riders

Here's a comparison of 3 riders at Blood, Sweat & Gears. ----->

Boyd Johnson is an ex-Columbia Cat. 1/Pro who lives in Greenville. He set the course record this year and you should check out his insane training schedule. If you want to be a pro cyclist look at his website to see what it takes.

Here's his description of BS&G:

Blood Sweat and Gears ride in Boone, NC. This wasn't a real race, but it's one of those rides where all the racers show up and it turns into a race. The nice thing is the terrain is much harder than any actual race that will be put on this year.

The course started out climbing pretty much right away. The pace is always fast on the first climb to weed out the majority of the riders who start the event. Usually there is a group of about 60-70 who make it over the first climb. About halfway up, I got to the front and upped the tempo. I carried on the front all the way to the top and there was about 30 people left in the field at this point.

I knew I was feeling really good today and made it a point to get to the front on every climb. I would set a pace on the front during the climbs and get away solo. At the top I would wait for the group and hang out for the flat and downhill sections. There was another major climb about the 60 mile part and I knew that would be where the final selection was made. I sat on the front from the bottom of the climb and soon found myself alone. I set a tempo the rest of the way up and had enough time to grab a couple waterbottles at the top. I set off solo but not super hard and soon two guys came up to me.

We rolled it from the bottom of the descent and built up a lot of time on the chase group. I found myself dropping the guys on the climbs, and there was one more big climb (2 miles at 8%). I opened a good gap and tried to go solo from this point, but got caught just before another mile long steep climb. I got to rest a little before the climb, so I hit it again on the climb and got away. . .this time for good.

I tried to keep a time trial effort going, but it was hard to keep threshold on the slight downhill. There was one more short steep climb a few miles before the finish. I only had about 30 seconds at the base, and I cracked hard when I reached it. I was worried about getting caught again but soon found my rhythm and opened the gap again. From there I descended and rode the last mile and a half into the finish. It ended up being a new record for the course, and I was feeling great when I finished. This is a big confidence booster for nationals. . .even if it's not a "real" race.

TNWC 6/26

Well, since it's 95 degrees--hell didn't freeze over--but I did win tonights edition of this weeks biggest race in Columbia. It was a photo finish with Ladd but the near unanimous verdict was that I got it...the lone vote for him was from some lady with 2 kids, last name started with an L or something.

The legs tonight felt like crap warming up tonight but I expected that. Karl got things rolling with the usual attack at KM 0 and I thought "what the hell..." and went with him. It was Karl, Francesco, me and some other dude. Karl and I were drilling it and we stayed away for 13min but we pretty much knew we'd be caught but it made the others chase us.

My legs started feeling better as the crit went on and at about midway there was a lull so I attacked hard up the left gutter...I picked up the remnants of an earlier break and was working with Derek and another dude. By the time we were caught the field was pretty thin and the next big attack was the final selection.

The final break had about 6 riders including Phillip (who was killing it all night), Karl, Ladd, The Harrell's duo (toby and damon), and maybe a couple more. Derek was shelled earlier so I liked my chances sprinting against all these climber types. I also started skipping some pulls to conserve a bit for the sprint. The one person I was worried about was Ladd so in the last 2 laps I stayed glued to his wheel.

Karl drilled it the entire final lap which limited any late attacks then after turn 4 Phillip took over then sat up. Ladd knew I was on his wheel and I could tell he was twitchy about it (he kept checking over his right shoulder). Phillip pulled off to the left at 300m and Ladd drifted over with him, he lost some momentum and glanced left...that's when I jumped HARD up the right gutter. I didn't really want to go at 250m but I got the gap and could see in the last 50m Ladd's wheel coming up from looking between my legs. He came around and it was a drag race to the line...a fun race.

Meltdown

Today was pretty epic...I started out climbing great and stayed with the front group of 30ish riders over the first major climb up to the parkway (did 30min at 281w NP). I recovered and really was feeling good when my rear derailler started jumping around...it wouldn't stay in a gear.

After it got real bad I had to stop and check it out...goodby group. It turns out that a link in my chain had chosen the biggest ride of the year to meltdown...luckily I had a chain tool with me and removed the link. The problem was that with a shorter chain I would forget and shift big-big and my whole drive train would seize up in a tangled mess...Then I would have to stop, get off and pull the chain out.

By this time I was way behind and several very large groups had rolled past...bummer. I had a mental meltdown thinking about riding alone for 70miles and my hands were solid black with grease. Not fun. That was a bad next hour on the bike.

When riding alone for this long you gotta try to figure out how to pace yourself to survive...I felt pretty good at about 220w so I tried to keep it there. I ended up jumping from group to group and found some good riders to work with but I usually wanted to go faster so I'd eventually end up alone. It was a long day but I actually enjoyed it a lot and kindof liked pulling people around.

I finished in 5:45....not much to say about that, I would have like to see how far I could have lasted with the fast group and I can imagine the meltdown associated with that would have been far more spectacular. Karl killed it as usual and finished 7th at 4:57 (he was close to bridging to the winning 3 but they saw him coming and drilled it) and Ladd--the new climbing sensation--at an amazing 5:03. Brian at 5:15 and Francesco just behind him. Mick and Treze both had good rides and Chris was the smartest of the bunch and found a great shortcut.

And Jules was 39th (6th female) in the 50miler.

Thursday

I did a very easy loop with Chris tonight then headed to El Burrito for the bluegrass. Now I gotta get my 27 put on, some new bartape, some new rubber for Jules' bike....then bed.

I talked to Karl tonight and we have a plan...at the last feed station a few miles before snake mtn he's gonna attack with me on his wheel (that's assuming I'm still with his group...). He'll drag me along and we'll get a couple minute gap so I can get over the climb without getting dropped from the front group (this is exactly what he did last year but I wasn't even close...).