Just realized that I didn't run out for my daily medium hot coffee with cream and 2 sugars from the DD. Also not missing my daily warm croisant drenched with butter. (Okay missing it a little bit as my stomach growls) What is wrong with me? I get up at 4:00 am, go back to bed at 5:00 (always a big mistake for me, I was wide awake, but felt the need for more rest) I wake up again, too late to make it to work on time, leave the house at the time I'm supposed to arrive at work, (by bike of course) and get to work around 9:00 (not bothering to take any shortcuts), unshaven, but glad to already be an hour into my work day. This place is good like that. No worries about your hours as long as you get the job done.. well within reason. Today is a rest day with easy spins to/from work and tomorrow's ride features VOmax hill repeats:
20 min warm up
45 min zone 2 (endurance pace)
3 min hill repeats at VOmax (2.5 min zone 5a, final 30 sec zone 5b)
8 min Recovery
repeat until you cannot match within 10% avg watts of 3rd interval
repeat until you cannot match within 10% avg watts of 3rd interval
60:00 zone 3 (tempo)
(Coach believes I can do this for how many more than three times I wonder??)
Now where can I find a nice loop that iincludes a 3 minute hill and 8 minutes of recovery? If I don't find something, I see myself on route 12 near the reservoir, going up to the top and then doubling back down to recover, which is lame and boring. Maybe a diversion down into the Hope Furnace area will get me onto a decent loop, but I doubt it will be less than 20 minutes around. No good. Curse you, New England roads..
10 comments:
drink your coffee black...
you'll shed weight faster...
if you don't like the way it tastes? Drink better coffee
Yeah, do what Gewilli says. Everyone should be the same. Everyone should do everything the same. No matter what.
i'm just the idiot babbling, no one is being forced to do what i say and to follow the path i'm choosing (like that GWB dude down in DC)
Hey I just had an idea. We should have a crit for all the trailer towers, Ben Hur style. That would be awesome!
We should all go out for a beer soon, maybe after the TT this week?
Murat, hate to burst your bubble, but the feds "best 3" ranking, pret-ty lame Millhouse. I can't believe that's the best they can do. The MCRA's is not much better. I think NEBRA's is the most accurate, if it included all races, and they ever updated it. Would be nice if it spanned last year too. But what's the difference? Computer rankings might be useful for upgrades (although even the feds don't have enough faith in theirs to use them for that), but when the hammer goes down, do we really need rankings to know who will go up the road and who will languish in the back?
ge: Black coffee is not my thing.. not a big fan. Cream and sugar make it complete, for me. You're right though, if I just stop having coffee completely, that's about 250-300 calories I can add to the daily caloric deficiency. If I eliminate the mid-morning buttered croisant, triple it. Just so cranky and off balance when I'm hungry.
SB: no we don't need rankings to know anything... but to divide this sport into two camps like that is pretty lame too. Sounds like an 80-20 rule.. 20% of racers get 80% of the wins, while the remaining 80% of racers kill eachother for the remaining 20% of wins.. Everyone's in it for very different reasons and for different objectives/goals. The rankings are a nice little diversion, something to aim for other than winning, something to show for all of the anonymous mid-pack finishes. If nothing else, it's the most comprehensive record that's kept of our racing history, out of anything else that is out there. Have you taken a minute to peruse your own personal "My USA Cycling Page"? It's more sophisticated than you give it credit for, Mr Nega-tive.
Yeah, I've seen it. I think it's a joke. An anonymous pack finish in a big race with a younger age group gets you more than winning a stacked field at a local event in an older age group. That's meaningless. It's a team sport and anything outside the top 20 (top 10 at smaller races) means nothing. And taking the best 3 races over 2 years? Please. Why on earth would they not take more than that? They have the numbers. Well, actually, they don't, because even though a USCF judge has to sign off on the results, it's up to the promoter to send them in. I don't understand that.
It's a level playing field for everyone. If 20% of the riders win 80% of the races, that is because they are the best riders. This sport is not about buying fancy clothes and expensive bikes. It's about riding faster than everyone else, or else you suck! That's the Nega-coach way!
the Husband here and too lazy to relog on as Gulay has been commenting elsehwere
or you could drink tea, you know the Turkish way with sugar only and a kick like a mule.........or add Captain to your coffee!!!! if you want hills get your ass down here to northern NJ, we have more hills than I can handle as a weekend warrior, I would like a flat ride occasionally like I used to get in Denmark, and when you consider their high point is 450ft that was flat.....and windy too but no chance....as a former MTB racer though hills are good, those ants in your leg are cool and the stars in your eyes perfect for the downhill just before you throw up....cant beat it, and thats when its dry, wait til its wet and you have to walk downhill!!!!!
Solo, they take the best three results from the past 12 months, not 24 months.. and the points are weighted per the number of finishers.. so getting 3rd in a race where 10 finished gives more "penalty points" than a race where you finish 20th out of say 100 finishers. Yeah it's not perfect, but it's a lot more than we had just a few short years ago. Progress is progress. Your low opinion of it is duly noted. Your dismissal of it as meaningless is a bit over the top..but we expect no less from the infamous Nega-coach.
Team sport? I beg to differ. Seems most of the time, most teams can't get out of their own way trying to nurse their "star" onto a podium. I said most, not all. Most of us are quite solitary in achieving results.. maybe I should speak only for myself.. but as the saying goes.. "in the slaughterhouse, every lamb is hung by it's own leg". For me at least, the benefit of being part of a team is quite minimal. Not to disrespect my team or anything, but I didn't join them so that I can help someone else win. If it's in my power to contribute to someone's chances, of course I will do it, and I do.. But the "team sport" card is overplayed. I observe a lot of teams with ten guys in an event, fail to get someone in the top ten.
The team thing could be a whole post on its own. You're right, as even at the pro level in Europe, almost all awards are individual, as are all sanctions for rules violations. I have a half-written post on my personal website about how "teams" are really more like urban gangs than sports teams.
I've never raced in Europe, so I've only seen their system from afar. Here though, the system totally discourages any form of team cooperation. You can only upgrade based on individual results. Most of the lower category races are short and not too difficult, so only good sprinters upgrade. Of course there are some exceptions, like climbers who win on the hill finishes, but it's tough for a strong roulleur who might make a great domestique to move up.
The other component that makes a real team is a director who is not racing. Most local teams are not managed in any way, so you always have conflict, and as a result less true cooperation. If we had a strong team infrastructure, where teams were invited to races, and directors decided which riders to bring (I believe this is how it works in some European countries) you might see a better mix of riders and more teamwork.
Personally I have a hard time asking anyone on my team, who paid his own way to the race, to make sacrifices for me, no matter how great I might think I'm going. But we still do it. I learned a long time ago that at our club team level, it's not how good you are, it's how good of friends you are. We help each other because we like each other.
With respect to rankings, yes, something is better than nothing. Taking only 3 results though, that is crazy. USA Cycling has a budget of somewhere in 8 figures. There is no reason why (the paying members who make up 99% of the membership) should have to hire 3rd parties for results and online registrations. These are services that should be provided across the board to all races. Why they only take a few hundred for the permit and officials, then let $1000-1500 go to bikereg is beyond me. They already have our personal info from when we bought our licenses, so they have the computing infrastructure in place already. All results from sanctioned events should be recorded and entered into the database. Then it's just a matter or how you want to crunch the numbers. Now though, many, many races are not reported at all, so they are not counted in the rankings.
Here in NE though, we race on a regional level, not a state level. The NEBRA system has a lot of potential. I think 20 placings is a good number. Not sure if what you said is a typo, but the feds should be counting the number of starters, not the number of finishers it they're going to do any weighting. But I'd guess that doesn't always get reported.
If you enjoy the rankings, that's great. I've watched them for a while, and it seems to me that a monkey throwing darts would be just as accurate (and yes, I've been up to first and down to 80th, with little correlation to how well I've been doing, so it's not sour grapes, trust me).
Now schedule some vacation time and come to the Workingman's. It's guaranteed to boost your TT ranking...
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