Is It Training if You Have a Plan?

Late Week Rides, Fitness and CX World's

Late Week Rides

I did a nice single speed ride at Big Creek yesterday and the new harder loop combined with the other stuff makes about a 22 minute lap now. It is challenging for the SS and very rocky. I like the Tues/Thurs loop better than the Wed/Fri direction--more climbing. I am hoping to do 1 SS ride a week and eventually get in 2 hours.

The Jittery Joes Saturday ride was today and although it has been fast in the past, today it was not so. We rode tempo and got in only 40 miles and 2.5 hours. Going out to the lake is nice but that area is too built up and it is doubtful I'll be back soon when i can ride from my house and get in a better workout.

Fitness
The fitness is returning slowly which is OK. I am now able to do 30 minutes of FT work and I'll do another test in February at the Tundra TT or before. The tempo work needs to be increased a bit right now and without the summer hours it has been challenging for me to get in more than 8 hours a week. All in all I am climbing out of the cellar.

World Championships
Niels Albert and Lars Boom have been talking trash for a few weeks now and I guess that is all over now that Boom pretty much handled Albert to win. It really is a huge Belgian dissapointment if a Belgian does not win but it is good to see Czech, French and Dutch riders being able to contribute and keep it truly a world event and not a Belgian one. Summerhill did great and hopefully he has good coaches that wil not let him get burnt out this year as has happened to other CX racers who have medaled at worlds.

I predict that Nys won't win tomorrow. I get that feeling that a certain Czech rider is on form and will surprise.

Riverside Ride

Today was not too cold but very windy. I rode my normal hour including a long stint on Riverside Drive. The wind would slam me in one direction and then I would have a great tailwind on the way back.

I was lucky enough to be able to do Old Riverside Dr which is dirt and is almost a mile long. Perfectly blown clear and smooth.

I also found an abandoned road along the route which is half dirt road , half dirt trail and it is well over a mile.

Today I did 1 block of tempo (15min), 2 blocks of threshold (2x15) and some easy stuff back to school for a total of 1:24.

Here is a picture of Old Riverside...



And the secret road...

Revised Race List

Hoping to do these events...

February:

17th: Tundra Time Trial

March:

10th and 11th: GA Single Speed MTB Championships

April:

March 30-April 5: GTC Mason-Dixon Divide Tour

29th: Yargo MTB Race

GTC Spring Classics

May:

20th: Ranger MTB Race

26th: GTC Club Road Championship

June:

10th: Chatsworth MTB Race or

24th: Columbus MTB Race

July:

2 Week Break While Teaching in Costa Rica

Resume Training for CX

August:

GTC Century

Covington Century

September:

Training for CX series

October-December:

Georgia Cyclocross Series (A Group or Masters)

Cyclocross Nationals (?)

Pittsburgh "Dirty Dozen" Race

Brookhaven-Riverside-Silver Lake

I ventured out from home today and rode north to Roswell to do intervals along my favorite riding place in Atlanta, Riverside-Azalea-Lower Roswell Roads. It is pretty much uphill to Dunwoody, then downhill to the river and then flat along the river. There are a lot of options once you are there and many steep hills in all directions up from the river.

I was shooting for 3 hours and was able to get in my intervals before a relaxing ride around the river area and great views of the Chattahoochee. I also, always do the mile or so dirt road of Old Riverside Road which may be the last dirt road in Roswell.

On the way back I like to ride through the Murphy-Candler Park area and across the dam, then over to Silver Lake and the fantastic 7 hairpins with great views of the small lake. It almost feels like Italy.

Depending on what side diversions I do it is usually around 50-60 miles. I was able to get in 60 minutes of Light (tempo) riding and 24 minutes of Middle (sub-threshold) in nice 15 minute blocks.

My watch and riding time were only off by 5 minutes so that is pretty good for the Atlanta area.

It was about 34 degrees when I started and warmed up to 44 by the time I got home. All in all a nice ride from my front door.

Pictures to follow...

Dan's Macabre Ride

Today we had the pleasure of riding in 70 degree weather in January. It was cloudy and no wind which made for a nice, fast ride. I had not been on a ride this long, going this fast, in a long time. After 1 hour we were at 21 mph and ended up at 20.5 mph for the whole 2:46 hours. A lot of guys pulled for most of the ride like Dan, Jeff (F1), Theron and Marshall. I was concerned with finishing and only did one pull the entire ride which I am not proud of.

We had a really nice group today of experienced riders/racers who are aspiring to lead the GTC racing team to a lot of great placings this spring. Most of the ride was a nice, packed group, doing the work needed to go fast and have fun.

The main highlights for me are the Lawerence Road mile long stretch of dirt which is full of pot holes and nasty ruts, turns and climbs. On the way out it is a lung buster and on the way back it is the perfect, sick lead up to the county line sprint on pavement about 500 meters past the end of the dirt. Nasty. The other highlights are the short, steep paved climb of Hickory Grove Church and of course the long broken climb of Jack Pittman.

Going up Jack Pittman we rode easy and no one attacked to the top so we averaged 306w for the climb and hit 582w max in some steep section. For the dirt road sprint, Jeff (F1) and I went for it and averaged 620w for the 15 seconds and 888w for the sprint at the end. For the county line sprint that no one went for but me (I get the dork award), I averaged 864w for the 15 seconds and 1133w for the sprint max. Any of the folks who did not sprint would have smoked me if they had gone for it so I am not too proud of those numbers, although for me they are not too bad.

My legs were really dead by the end and I ended up doing about everything but ride easy. I spent 20% of the ride between 0 and 20watts and I averaged 218w for the entire ride. In terms of training zones, I spent 70 minutes in recovery (<156w), 22 inutes Easy ( 157-212w), 17 minutes Light (tempo-213-254w), 17 minutes Middle (sub-threshold-255-296w), 14 minutes High (297-338w), and a whopping 24 minutes in Sub-max (<339)!.

This is way too hard for me in January but sometimes you have to see where you fall and how you will respond to a hard, fast ride. I am tired but feel that I kept up and happy I did not get dropped.

Here is the profile:

La Primavera in January?

Thank the current El Nino cycle for the nice warm weather today. It was 55 at the start and soon we were in shorts. The ride was an abbreviated La Primavera and only went about 50 miles. Going to Good Hope there was a nice tail wind and on the way back an equal headwind. The group of 11 or so rode well together until the bridge on Partain Rd where a few of us split off. I had to try and beack early. The sprint on Partain was negated by Mike because of an oncoming car. Jay decided to do it anyway on the inside. That leaves it Jay 2, everyone else 0. He's crafty.

I tried to pull a lot today and I was very tired at the end. This was the first week since August where I cracked 8 hours and 150 miles.

Here was the week according to the new (ugh) training zones (easy 157-212w, light 213-254w, middle 255-296w, high 297-338w)

Here you go Jeff!

Critical Power Test (1/03/07)

After a long holiday break that was preceeded by being sick for 2 weeks I decided it was about time to face the music and see how badly I had slipped.

Tuesday I did my 15 second and 1 minute power and yesterday I did my 5 minute and 20 minute power. The results were about what I expected.

My 15 second power was not that much worse that I had done in the past at 888w. My 1 minute power was low at 558w.

My 5 minute power has decreased by 10watts at 330w and my 20 minute power took a big hit, falling from 300w to 290w.

In using 20 minute power to calculate Critical Power (CP), or Functional Threshold Power (FTP) you have to account for the shortness of the interval and that means subtracting 5% of your value. This leaves my CP at 280watts, 20 watts lower that during the racing season.

Here is a comparision of my last few CP tests:

One thing that is obvious is the increase in my 5 minute and 20 minute power during the fall when I was training and racing.

But, in about a month I have lost quite a bit of threshold power. This is evidenced by the graphs below showing my CP values for December 13 (Left) and January 4th (Right).
















The good thing is that I can raise this back up as long as I begin again focusing on FTP efforts
over the next 4-6 months. If by May I can increase my FTP power again, I may be able to crack the 40km TT in under an hour. First I have to get to the point where I can stay at threshold for 60 minutes and that will take a little while. It will be ahrd without aero gear but I am hopeful.

First Ride of 2007: Robertson Bridge Pave Ride

Yesterday there were two GTC rides that both left from Bethlehem, GA. The fist was a 72km ride that featured 15km of Georgia "Pave" dirt roads. After a nice 2 days fo rain, the roads were moist but pretty much blown clear of gravel. I think I counted 10 people on the ride and we even had a tandem. Thanks to Jay, we had a nice selection of 11 dirt roads to ride in the area. The map can be found here for future reference.

The plan was to stay together and average a slow 26km/hr pace and we ended up lower than that at around 22km.hr. On a incredible day like today with winds 10-20mph and cloudy-sunny skies, we were shooting for around 4 hours of total time. However, it is sort of an understanding that once the group hits a dirt section everyone basically hauls ass to the end and waits. This is mostly because it is more fun that way and secondly because the dirt is easier to ride going fast.

Two of the dirt roads were "out and backs" because many of the wooden bridges that used to cross the rivers have been washed away. But most of the dirt sections were through-ways and usually were not flat. Robertson Bridge road was the longest and was not flat...


Another great road was Pope Road which looked like a double track forest road and was very eroded and had lots of standing water which Mike and Jay could not resist riding through twice.

One of the more funny things happened on pavement and that was coming across a bull that had escaped the pasture and was hanging out on the side of the road. I stopped to get a picture and the bull didn't really like that but I was able to get by him without any trouble. Wojtek went back and actually herded the bull back into the field, probably cursing at it in Polish.

As we approached Gratis, we met up with the other GTC ride which had a bigger crowd and some of those folks I had not seen in a long time. Pistures are on the GTC website.

The last section was Jericho road and it has one of the only one lane wooden bridges left.



In the past we have had standoffs with cars on this bridge and also crashes, at the center of both of these was Ming-go figure.



Everyone agreed that this was a great way to begin 2007 and between now and March there should be 1 pave ride posted every other week, alternating with the GTC Winter Ride and others.