Plan B

The incessant precipitation this week has required me to train indoors- no commuting to work and no Ninigret Crit last night. It's been weird adjusting to training without power data! Monday I did an easy one hour crotch numbing spin on the rollers. Why not the windtrainer? because I want to get a mileage reading and for this to happen with my Polar HRM, the front wheel needs to be in motion! Yes the true colors of my OCD shine through. No worries. Better men have done worse.. So Tuesday I decide to add a little bit 'o intensity, but with a HRM on rollers, I need to be in the 53x13 just to get my heart rate up to 160. So I'm trying to adapt to the situation.. I decide- let's hit it HARD for 1-2 minutes and wind up the heart rate to 160, then soft pedal it back down to 140 and repeat. This is a JOKE! Training by heart rate is effing medieval IMHO. Heart rate takes forever to catch up to the effort on the pedals. It's like Rain Man.. who would answer questions posed to him two hours ago or whatever, you know what I mean.
So on Friday I expect for my new ERGOMO Pro system to arrive with matching carbon cranks. I got them for a song, from an Ebay seller who accepts returns within 7 days- no strings. I know I threw the dice big time on this one, but the features of the Ergomo computer were too good to ignore, and the price was a no brainer. Plus I was tired of racing on a rear wheels that others have accurately described as an "anchor". Now the very light and hardly ever used Easton Tempest 2 rear wheel can finally populate my race bike instead of hanging in the garage.
Last night- I'm hoping to ride the bike home and it begins to pour.. at 3:00 pm I call the YMCA- the 5:45 SPIN class is full, so I add myself to the wait list. I don't wait for a phone call, I just GO, and as luck would have it, there was one no-show. I did a solid one hour of SPIN averaged 218 watts and 160 bpm. Today I'm feeling it. Saturday I will be doing a loooong easy ride to try out the Ergomo. Sunday we're racing the Quabbin Reservior Pro race. It's going to be a nice hot race. Thinking back to the last Pro-Am road race I did- the 2006 Topsfield race. That year my fighting weight was a lean 165 pounds, and I was using my current LOOK 486 bike, without Powertap- I had the matched pair of Eastons on there. My approach for Sunday is to just make the best of it and enjoy the ride. No pressure on myself to perform. I'll save that for the A races (criteriums) coming up later on this summer. We have a couple of guys on our team who are capable of winning on Sunday and it's going to be exciting..