The burn

Time is short. Just the workouts.

Thursday 5/15/2008

I had set a goal earlier in the year of 60' @ 300W. A bit ambitious, maybe? But I'm still working on it in a twofold manner:

I figure my one hour, functional threshold power is probably around 275W. This is where Eric tested my Lactate Threshold in January. He said that when I'm in shape at the end of the season and I'm in a race situation, I should consider it possible to ride at 275W for an hour.

Recently my focus has been more on pushing the power . As such, my interval sets have all remained about in the 5 x 8' realm...but the average effort keeps increasing for that 8'. Last week, I decided to try to push up the Muscle Endurance by doing long steady state at LT. So I made my goal 275W and set out for as long an effort as I could handle with 20' being sort of the goal. I got through 1 x 20' with an average power of ~285. I was fairly happy with that and I was definitely at my LTHR for the last 5-8 minutes so I'd say it was legitimate LT work.

After that I rested for 10 minutes and then did another 1 x 10' at ~280W.

I think I'm going to alternate weeks from here on out of 5 x 8 at slightly higher power and long steady state efforts at LT--increasing the duration maybe 10-15% each session.

I'm keeping the goal in mind of 60' @ 300W for the end of the year--A late season 40k OR (probably more importantly) Cyclocross season. Being able to confidently ride ~300W (give or take) for 45 minutes would have me feeling good about upgrading to the 3's for cyclocross. We'll see if I can get there. I have been increasing power just fine, but I seem to be stagnating on the duration of the intervals, which tells me the muscle endurance needs work. So a slightly lower power for a longer duration makes sense...at least right now.

Friday, 5/16/2008

I decided to skip out on the hill climb road race on Saturday, so I got a long day in on Friday after work. With commuting that day, I probably got ~4hours of saddle time. All recovery to endurance pace.

Saturday, 5/17/2008

Took the day off except for an easy spin out around the lake and some work (at home) with a broomstick on drop snatches and hang snatches with a full OHS catch. They felt pretty good and I look forward to trying them out this week.

Went out with Dr 1% for some quality Mexican food after all of that.

Sunday, 5/18/2008

I raced a terrifying Wheels on Willy criterium in my own stomping grounds here on Madison's east side. All in all a great day. I saw a lot of good folks out and around the race, had dinner with some friends, and had a pretty decent finish in my race.

BUT, there were probably at least 4-5 crashes in my race, 3 of them in my periphery, one of them resulting in a medical emergency that caused the race to be neutralized (we had to restart with 2 laps to go. Brutal). During this crash, my teammate James broke the fork on his bicycle and his front wheel (but he was okay). Bummer.

I really, really like bike racing. I just wish it wasn't so terrifying. But I guess deep down, that is probably why I like it.

Anyway. I should probably just quit rambling.

It was (in my opinion) a very tough race. Hardest Wisconsin Cup race this year. Hardest race I've done since Collegiate Regionals on the Square (where I crashed).

I'll hit the high points:

1.) I avoided all crashes and walked away with my body and my bicycle intact. This is always priority one.
2.) I fought all day to stay at the front 15 riders in the race,
3.) I put in a pretty hard (riding cross eyed and foaming at the mouth) dig to try to get off in a break with a teammate (I threw in the towel after ~3/4 of a lap when I looked back and saw we only had maybe 40 feet on the peloton and he wasn't pulling through)
4.) I held my nerve (despite almost pulling out when they neutralized and restarted the race because of a badly injured rider) and position at the front of the race through the last lap and threw down a decent sprint to pass about 4-8 riders and finish 8th of about 65-70 starters. I can live with that.

Again, I thought it was a really hard race. A lot of riders, a lot of attacks, fast, sketchy corners. Nothing was able to get off the front despite repeated efforts from a couple of strong guys that I've never, ever seen before. What are these guys doing? It's like they have just been sitting in a basement on a computrainer for the last 2 years doing nothing but a Wheels on Willy simulation course and developing calves the size of tree trunks. I'd never seen or heard of 3 or 4 of the top 7 finishers in my race before. Hopefully they go back to the basement for another year because they were strong.

Also, props to ZW for racing. Sorry that you crashed and I'm glad you're okay.