Ninigret Crit No 1

Having a warranty service call at a school project in New London- ideal to set up the appt for Wed afternoon, because afterwards, I can go straight to Ninigret for the first smack-down of 2009. I'm not alone in getting there early- lots of guys showed up at 5:00 and took off to get a nice 60 minute spin/warm-up before hand. I timed my arrival such that I ended up doing a nice little loop with Dave K, Mike M and Mike C- what could be better? Funny- first half of the ride I can't get the new Ergomo to work- I try everything- no watts, speed or rpms. Then 15 minutes into it I remember that the Ergomo doesn't automatically connect to the data like the Powertap you have to plug in the wire yourself, dummy! Phew! For a few minutes there, I though that my $650 investment had gone up in smoke.. We got back around 6 and I decided to change out of my short sleeve Under Armor and into my long sleeve thermal Under Armor. Temps were 55 at first, but now they were dropping and I was sweaty. More warm-up on the race course while the B's raced- which seemed to really screw up their event- 'A' riders were all over the place, getting in their way.. We lined up at 6:30 with a pretty good sized field- about 40-45 guys. Maybe more. I worked really really hard in the first 15-20 minutes. At the front for some duration pretty much every lap, and for many laps in succession. Primes are being given, but I'm not ever really feeling strong enough to go for any. Then about 1/4 way through our race, right after a prime sprint, about 15 guys roll away and leave about 30 of us behind. The gap is small- if I hadn't buried myself the lap before, I could have jumped across.. but timing was not on my side. This 5 second gap grew and grew and grew until it was basically about 1/2 a lap and they surfed the field until the end. This contained the usual Mark M, Tobi S, Bill Y, Adam S, Gary A and others- didn't get a real good look at all of them from behind as they hit the throttle. There was a crash in the breakaway group in turn No 2 and bodies were scattered all over. I heard that a collarbone was broken, don't know who.. The break was whittled down to 8-10 guys after this (see the deep valley in the HR chart, as we all coasted through to avoid hitting the casualties). I'm happy to go to the front and take some pulls, do some work, maybe get close to the break, whatever. This is a training race. On one lap I decided I'm going to turn myself inside out for about 1 minute and see if I can drag some of the stronger guys with me. My team mate Mike S. is the only one who can follow, and by the time I ease up, I can't even follow his wheel, I'm so cooked (see the peak in the HR chart). Then three other guys blow past me and I try to latch on, but the field was onto us by the time I caught my breath. We picked up quite a bit of time on the break- [that lap], but we weren't really organized and the host team had a lot of guys in the field- maybe they were blocking- I couldn't tell. Later on.. with 5 laps to go I resolved to freshen myself up for the finish and avoid those 1 minute intervals which I so love to do while racing. Sat in and let the HR drop to the low 160s (you can see it in the chart) Last lap, an NBX rider went for it a little past the finish- opened a nice gap. 4-5 guys were in pursuit of him on the back stretch and I followed these wheels after making it through the crunch that was the 2nd to last corner. As it turned out, I had the freshest legs of the front 5 because I accelerated past the pursuers right before that final dog leg corner, passing them on the right and accelerating up to the NBX whose last match burned out about 200 meters before the line. I got myself a field sprint by a few bike lengths, thanks to a good recovery and a well-timed acceleration. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's one of those things that you NEED after falling apart in a road race and finishing one hour down on everyone. Confidence is built a little bit at a time.. I also took a nice prime. Does your mouth water just thinking about the taste? Thanks for reading.

Cramping 101

If you race for 90 minutes with severe muscle cramps (racing is probably incorrect- more like "getting your ass back to the car..") such that you can actually see your muscles deform and change shape, and if there is residual pain in all of these muscles in the days which follow, what does it mean? Is this an indication of serious muscle fiber tears? Have I ripped myself up? It sure feels like it. I could easily Google this, but I'd rather hear what readers think about the damage caused by muscle cramps. Maybe if Sunday's race wasn't point to point, maybe if it was 5 laps around a 12 mile course, then maybe I wouldn't have finished, but maybe the damage to my leg muscles would have been limited. (??)

(Final) Stage 8 sprint crash Tour of Turkey 2009

Out of all the carnage of that final 4 km, one of Turkey's finest pro road racers- Mirac Kal- took 9th place. The Turkish National Team's best placed rider in General Classification was Ugur Marmara, at 69th (1 hour 17 minutes back from winner) which isn't bad for a 29 hour, 1200km, 8 day stage race. Heck I lost an hour to the winner of yesterday's 63 mile Quabbin Road Race. Puts things in persepective..
Here's a link to the Cycling News report on the final stage and overall GC

2009 Quabbin Reservoir Road Race

Above is the published profile of the 63 mile race course. Below is my bike computer's interpretation of the profile. Which one do you think I looked at when I decided to race this event? The chart below shows only altitude and heart rate.
All kidding aside, many things about my race were absolutely awful. Fortunately, I also have the luxury of finding the good concealed within the bad and the ugly. This week I increased my training volume way too much, by a factor of 2.35.. and today's lousy performance was not a surprise. The cramping surprised me, and the difficulty of this course surprised me (see above). Let me also add that "Mapmyride" indicates only 3035 vertical feet of climbing. My Polar and my Ergomo beg to differ. Polar recorded 4419 feet of climbing and Ergomo 5066. I hear that District Championships used to do TWO laps of this?? 126 miles?? Good grief that would suck.

17.15 pounds

After 2-1/2 years of riding my LOOK 486, I finally weighed it today. It includes pedals and two cages. I'm impressed with old bike. Looking at BMC frames lately.

Critical Workout

I did a solid ride after work- over three hours. Got home at 9:15. I love doing the backroads at night with headlight and blinky. Feels kind of hard core.. Now that I'm a 'bachelor' for the nest many weeks, I can train with impunity, well into darkness, and not worry about what time I'm expected home. and now that the crap weather of the past few days has passed, it's time to really put my head down and do the proper ratio of work and rest to force the kind of adaptations that I'm after. It might interest some of my five readers to know that I am not using a coach any longer, not since last August. We keep in touch, but I've been the captain for the past 8 months. So here's tonight's ride- and I'll bet it's not too different from the Quabbin Reservoir Road Race route on Sunday.

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..

2009 Rick Newhouse Criterium

In the 35+ race, I won the Best Prime Ever, by attacking before the 2nd to last corner and holding off a pursuing Eric Marro. More on the contents of this mysterious brown bag they call the "Men's Vitality Prime" later.. This could rate as the highlight of my day at that point but there is more to tell. Our humble team scored The Big Slick. A very in-form Matt Kressy took 2nd in the 35+ (by winning the field sprint) and then took a commanding win in the Pro-Am race which followed. I'm in NY today but I'll post some pics of the results later on. The other highlight of my day was attacking the 'field' before the final corner and almost making it to the line for 11th- but one guy stuck to my wheel and easily came around my dead legs just before the line. I was suffering in the Pro-Am race which followed- we had our man in the break and the attacks to bridge across wore me out enough that I cracked with 8 to go. Still a great day!

Brown

Holy smokes everyone on Thayer Street is in stripper mode.
It's a sea of pasty white skin..

Karma

I just shipped a pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL wheels to a guy in Japan, using a cardboard box that originally came here from Taiwan with 1/2 dozen Specialized floor pumps in it.

Next: Rick Newhouse Criterium

Looks like some decent weather for racing on Saturday. I'm in for the 35+ and the Pro-Am which follows it. Training has been low volume but high quality these past many weeks. More than anything I want to have a great time and not crash. Last year I raced on a slow leak on the rear tire and was lucky to crack top ten with it. Maybe this year I'll have better luck. You know me- I'm not 'skilled' enough to avoid an unpredictable flat tire! Hehe..

Good luck to all you Battenkillers. Bike shops are licking their chops in anticipation of all the equipment failures that will be checked in next week for repair.

Gaaaah!!

I just agreed to sell my 12,000+ mile Powertap wheel! Need to find a nice matched pair of wheels to replace them with- preferably Zipp 404s! Who's selling? Has anyone ever heard of 50mm "Blackwell Research" carbon wheels? There's a matched pair on Ebay I think I can get for $1250 or so.. I think it's far eastern stuff rebadged here in the states, but what isn't these days???

DeJaVu

It will appear that I have an OCD relative to average speed and time, but this is wacky.. On Feb 14th I did my favorite hilly 40 mile loop. I always hit the lap timer at the mid way point- which is at the top of a hill. On that cold day in February, I hit the mid way point at 1:04:55 and completed the ride in 2:08:30-ish. Here's the Polar chart from Feb 14th.
Yesterday I needed a lot of motivation to suit up and throw a leg over the bike, and so what better way to fool yourself into going out and thrashing yourself for two hours, than to go for a new personal best on a known route? It's been two months since the last test, and I'm SURE to do way better than in February, you would think. Long story short, I matched my last time to within 5 seconds- both at the half way time check and at the end. If you said you'd give me $1000 to do this, I'd fail, but somehow yesterday's ride was the identical twin of the ride on 2/14. The watts we pretty much the same too- a little less than before, but I can attribute this to losing some body mass over the past few weeks. So why isn't my speed UP! I can't explain it other than maybe standing in the freezing rain for 8 hours on Saturday did a number on my legs.. (no riding at all for me Saturday) and that for the past month+, I have barely cracked 100 miles per week. Volume is way down as compared to the death marches I did every weekend in January and February. Intensity is up, but volume is down. The wind was definitely a factor- it seemed to be gusting to 25 mph and constantly shifting. At any rate, this was the good solid workout that I was after- more TSS than if I went up to Wells anyway! I wonder how that went..

2009 Chris Hinds Criterium

Here are the pictures I took while trying to do a good job announcing primes, attending to the lap cards, and delivering primes to shivering blue-lipped finishers. Well I should qualify that, Sheldon Charles did the lion's share of the work and I was like, manager and stuff. We made a good team! So in between all of the stuff going on in the race, I tried my best to get some pics here and there- mostly from the Pro and 35+ races:

Here are the rest, but not Women's results, sorry. That was the last race and wasn't posted in time for me to shoot.




More later, gotta run!

1. I will post results when I get home.
2. I did not race in the freezing rain.
3. Someone broke their collarbone.
4. It's still raining and miserable.

No rest

"Sleeping" from 12:30 AM until 6:00 AM with three or more interruptions does not constitute quality rest. For whatever reason, I occasionally have these fits of sweating profusely while I sleep, then wake up soaking wet and shivering cold,, and there ends up being a pile of wet t-shirts next to the bed because I changed into a new dry one three times. Falling back asleep in a damp bed sucks too, and all of this sounds like the perfect way to invite bacteria, infection, pneumonia, whatever.. The cause of this is a mystery. It comes and it goes. Recently the right side of my throat is swollen and sore again, as it was last week on both sides and went away only with antibiotics. Lately our son has a fever and my wife has pain in her right kidney. WTF?? I am really f--king starting to hate New England and it's miserable spring weather.. It was almost more fun to ride when the temps were in the teens and 20s- at least it was dry and the temperature swings weren't such that you got sick every other week. It is STILL not as warm here as it was in San Diego two months ago. We met a few people out there who were astonished to discover we were from the Land of Peter Griffin. "Oooohh! I've always wanted to see Rhode Island!".. I wanted to punch them in the mouth. Is that bad? Diggity.

2009 45th Presidential Tour of Turkey 12-19 April

You have to see this prize list. It's any pro's wet dream. $4500+ Euros for winning a stage. What's that about $7500 dollars? Really makes you think about those $300 masters purses being split up 8 ways. Link to the 45th Presidential Tour of Turkey. I wonder how many pros are going to play it smart and vacation on the South coast after the race is over.. Dopers beware: I remember in 2007, Kashekin was located in Belek (where we also vacationed just a few weeks later) and he was given a random drug test at his hotel. Busted.

2009 Michael Schott Memorial 35+

Full Results are up on Bikereg
Okay this sort of turns my crank.. I just checked the results and it appears that the other 14 guys who "did not finish" get to remain anonymous. When did quitting become more honorable than finishing (or trying your best to finish?) Lame.

Another podium for Millwork One Racing: Matt Kressy is 2nd in the field sprint out of a full field in Marblehead. Needless to say the team is proud and honored to have Matt fighting to win races for us and we all share his good result even though we're just riding his coat tails. I had an unlucky day: a pre-race nature break combined with tinkering with new, untested equipment cost me the start and had me chasing a charging field solo for one lap before I sat up and waited for the them to come around so I could jump in. Then my rear hub started squealing like a pig whenever I coasted for more than 5 seconds. Worse things could have happened I guess and it was a good day overall for the team. I'm glad to have had an easy time motorpacing in the field- but once you're down a lap there's little reason to turn yourself inside out, especially with a potentially deadly mechanical issue.

Below I give you the series of photos showing the finishing sprint of the 35+ field. (courtesy of David Rizzo- see his slideshow above) It's evident in the last few pictures that I crossed the line a half hearted 18th, knowing that there was no free lap. In fairness- I did indeed turn myself inside out for the first lap while most people were sucking wheel and soft pedaling.. Oh well.. Wouldn't have mattered anyway.. The mechanical issue made it impossible for me to leave it all out there.

Coming up for air.. and coffee lessens the pain of exercise

What a schmuck I've been.. On 3/20 (day after my birthday) I inherited a nasty infection whose primary symptoms were fatigue, muscle aches and a throat that was in too much pain to swallow anything other than Kozy Shack (speculating.. didnt eat any) So I was sick Friday, Sat, Sun, Monday (skipped work) Tuesday, Wed, Thurs, Fri.. and then Saturday I'd had enough of trying to beat this thing unassisted. Dear wife called our doctor and said doctore called in a scrip for some meds at the 24 hour CVS. This was Sat night. Took the antibiotics before bed and in the morning, I am a new f--cking man. Astonishing how I came to life on Sunday. Pain and exhaustion gone. Head clear. Muscles ready for action. I did a workout on the trainer- not a strong one, just some zone 2/3. Then last night (Monday) I was feeling even better, and did this:
20:00 WU
5:00 FT (275)
5:00 RI
3:00 FT+10% (305)
3:00 RI
3:00 FT+10% (288)
3:00 RI
3:00 FT+10% (290)
10:00 RI
5:00 FT (266)
10:00 CD
Not an easy workout, no matter how long you rest between intervals.. This is less than 48 hours since popping the pills. I don't like taking antibiotics, but this seems to have developed into a secondary bacterial infection. Saturday I was on the verge of going to the ER and Monday I'm pounding out interval after interval.. So relieved to be past it.
Now for something completely different: Caffeine is a performance enhancer. A few of you may have spied me before the start of Wells Ave or Ninigret, nursing a medium DD hot coffee with cream and 2 sugars. Apparently I was onto something, even though a lot of people would make a face and ask "how do you drink that before a race??". So here is proof that swilling coffee before the start line is not going to hurt you [at worst, assuming you have a strong stomach], and contrarily, will help you to dig a little deeper during performance:
coffeelessensthepainofexercise

Spain vs Turkey World Cup Qualifier Saturday

Here's a pretty cool NIKE commercial from Turkey, featuring the Turkish National Soccer Team- intended to stoke sales in advance of Saturday's qualifier against Spain. Below: Gratuitous soccer related body painting- the best kind of painting if you ask me..Okay now that you are standing at attention, there is a World Cup 2010 Qualifier between Spain and Turkey this Saturday.. These images are from the time when Turkey played in the 2002 semi finals and ended up with the bronze. I can assure you that the Turkish fans are more like the Brasilian fans than the two head-scarf-girls pictured here, but the implication back in 2002 was that "this is why Turkey lost to Brasil". Funny stuff..

Playing host..

..to a virus since my birthday last Thursday.. Sick.. sicker.. sickest was how Sat, Sun and Monday felt.. I'm on the other end of the curve now.. thank G-d. I'm sick, but well enough that I could come to work yesterday for 1/2 day, and actually arrive on-time today.. It won't astonish anyone that I rode the windtrainer Monday night for an hour, or that I did some intervals last night which caused the veins in my forehead to bulge un-naturally. This kind of treatment accelerates my recovery- I'm sure of it. Keeps me on top of it mentally. Few more days and I will be out there with my new [to me] Mavic Cosmic Carbone wheels, putting the hurt on someone who has trouble holding my wheel. Okay now I'm just thinking wishfully.. and realizing that hey- this sport is not just about testing our own limits- it's also and mostly about testing the limits of others. It's when you don't have to be at your limit in order to drop someone or put them into the red zone which makes the price of it, worth paying. Fast as all hell wheelsets help too!

My mother asked me..

..what I want for my birthday.. and of course I replied "Duuuuhhhh...nuthin'... Duuuuuhhhh".. when in reality there are so many friggin toys and gizmos and performance thingies like pedals and shoes that I have my eye on.. that I need or want.. So today is my b-day and I am officially into my 39th year. (this means I just "turned 38" in the 'American' sense of age) Been trying to buy a pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbone wheels from a very talented friend who I'll refer to only as TS.. We already made a deal on the price- it's just been a matter of hooking up with him off of I-95 on one of my many drives to Boston.. Anyway, how do you tell your mother to call so and so and pay for a pair of carbon race wheels for you?? Man.. the last time anyone bought me anything in terms of a bike or a bike part, was when my dad bought me a brand new CyclePro bmx bike for my 13th birthday. It was called "Macho II"- more or less a POS entry level tank.. which was later replaced with a used PK Ripper with the resin "Zee-rims"- better for the rough landings of my "table-top" jumps and other shenanigans..
So here I sit, wheel-less until tomorrow, and nothing on it's way to me from Mom either. I've half a mind to go to Providence Bike and buy that Orbea road bike or that Santa Cruz mountain bike I've had my eye on.. (Pause mom just called to wish me happy birthday- is asking me again- what do I want- should I send a link for a pair of Conti race tires or a Dura Ace cassette??)
I'll leave you with this pearl of wisdom which Solobreak shared with me recently:
"Perfect health is just the slowest possible form of death."
The raw truthfulness of it makes my skin crawl.

FT+ ?%

After I leave my place of employment, it takes me 17 minutes to get the the Cranston bike path off of Park Ave. By this time I'm usually warmed up and feeling ready to work. The bike path takes about 25-30 minutes to reach the end- perfect for a block of 1:00 intervals. (the path is empty- it's okay to go a little fast in March) With the occasional intersection, you have to use some discretion about how long to work and how long to rest. My rule is that these "FT +10%" efforts should be more than 1:00 but less than 2:00. For recovery, I go with 1:00 maximum. The variability makes it more challenging. Once I'm at the end of the bike path, after doing 12 of these 320w intervals, I get onto route 117 and take 10:00 of recovery, and then I do it all over again, all the way to the top of the hill that's about a mile before you reach route 102. That's another 10 intervals down, and I double up on the very last one, doing a solid 2:00 of puke-tastic effort. I recover for a few minutes and do 20:00 of tempo all the way home, in the twilight of dusk. T'was a cold ride to work today, but it looks fantastic outside right now. Rain tomorrow?

2009 Ebay Purchase No 1

I have been buying and selling on Ebay since 1999. This sort of makes me a veteran (or a master, if you like). I have 100% positive feedback and a score of 668. I am a Powerseller, meaning I average over $1000 in sales per month.. It is my hope that one day I will populate my Ebay store with enough inventory to actually make a living from it, but I'm realistic.. For now, selling a few high end kid's bikes per month is a fun hobby that helps pay for some racing expenses for me and my team. What was I going to write about? I drift so easily off topic.. Yes I bought a pair of Shimano Dura Ace chains for a ridiculously low price and with free shipping. Let's just say that I can barely buy a single Ultegra chain from REI for the cost of these two Dura Ace chains, especially after applying the sweet 10% off coupon which Ebay is in the habit of e-mailing to me regularly.
In other news.. For those of you looking for a Campagnolo Record headset or Italian threaded Record bottom bracket, please check out my Ebay store: http://stores.ebay.com/WeeBike. The listings end tomorrow night I believe.. I am also selling my other road bike- the 57 cm carbon EPX with Rolf Vector Pro wheels and Chorus drivetrain. Here's a picture.
If you are in the market for a high end LikeaBike children's bike, please transact at my other site: http://www.weebike.com/, where I make a few more dollars by avoiding Ebay fees. The Paypal buttons are found in the sidebar for each of the bike models. If you have a 2-5 year old child and want to borrow a demo bike for a week before making a buying decision, let me know and I'll bring one to the races for you. Many thanks.

"The coin has dropped"

Sorry Matt S, I'm a dingus for not doing any due diligence. The Spinelli connection is now understood. And all the while I was saying to myself "who is that skinny dude with the Jamaican colors?".

2009 Bike Commute No 1

Tried out my new Novarra backpack yesterday and I'm pretty happy with it. Previously I was using a messenger bag, but it's not good for the times when I really need to train after work- too much swinging around and instability. This thing hugs you and has straps across the chest and midriff which make it feel nice and tight- like a parasite has latched onto your back. Sounds awful, but it's what you want when you need to do some hard work on the commute home, especially out of the saddle type stuff. So yesterday I braved the cold and rode to work and rode it home.. Nothing to get excited about, but it felt like an eternity since the last bike commute back in November. Oddly, even after wolfing down a nutty powerbar and an orange at 3:30, I felt famished on the ride home- like enough to stop and grab a Snickers bar.. but I resisted the temptation. I think the body was stepping up metabolism or something, maybe something to do with doing two rides in one day? I think it goes a long way towards getting lean- riding twice in one day that is.. (just ask G-Diddy, who believes his bodyfat percentage is in the single digits) I wonder if there is a way to measure muscle percentage. What's a healthy value for this, I wonder.. I drove in to work this morning, but all my bike stuff is in the car, so I'm riding home tonight and very much looking forward to it.. There will be timed intervals involved..
Thanks for reading.

Wells Ave No 1

I don't want my scores of blogosphere fans to bite their nails all night so I will dispense with today's result- your hero was 5th in a knife fight of a field sprint, in which finishers 3 and 4 nearly wobbled into eachother from fatigue and closed the door on my acceleration. I was in the sweet spot of the train but as luck would have it, my line was was not clear all the way to the line. Fine and dandy. That's racing. Interestingly, avg speed was about 2 mph higher than last year's Wells Ave opener of March 23. Power? I won't bore you with numbers but I am ahead of schedule in all CP durations, especially the magical Normalized Power value for 60 minutes. It's good. Bad news that we had guys on our team become involved in two crashes. They are going to be okay but $5000 bikes don't heal without throwing big wads of cash at them!

How does this happen?

And this is from only one side of my chain. I wouldn't have discovered this without cleaning the muck and filth off of it last night. I was halfway commited to go to Charge Pond or Plainville today, but that would risk iminent equipment failure and injury. No bike shops are open in time for me to fix this situation and make the start line. Next chain will be a 2008 Dura Ace- they're about $35 on Ebay these days.

Power=work/time

Monday no workout. Tuesday no workout. Instead both days included minimal sleep and stress overload. Wednesday night I tried to get back on track with some 10 and 20 minute FT intervals after a looong warm up (30 minutes). The first 10:00 FT was fine and dandy. Then recovery, then into a 20:00 FT.. but it wasn't in me. I ended up doing about 5-6 minutes before I decided to just spin it out for the rest of the hour. Last night was a different story:
20:00 WU
5:00 FT
5:00 RI
3:00 FT+10%
3:00 RI
Repeat 3 more times
10:00 RI
5:00 FT
5:00 CD
Explanation? Work was halfway enjoyable for a change, wife is coming around from her cold, and some other tidbits of good news managed to give me wings. It is pretty scary how factors outside of training and preparation can affect form. In fact it got me to thinking- is it possible that anti-depressant pills such as Prozac and others can enhance an athlete's performance? Let's face it-it's harder to focus on intense training and harder to perform in a race when you are under depression, stress and anxiety. It would not astonish me to discover that this is an idea which is already being abused.

Thank you Chipotle!

I know that some have a low opinion of "fast food".. So I stopped eating the burritos wrapped in a tortilla and I switched to the "burrito bowl", which is a lot fewer calories, fewer carbs. The bowl is simply a couple of scoops of rice, some meat, peppers and onions, hot sauce, sour cream and grated cheese. So satisfying.. While at the AToC the other week, we won a whole bunch of free Chipotle food coupons at the Chipotle tent. And dear wife's Blackberry has GPS and can find all Chipotle's in our vicinity- there are a few out there! Our favorite was the one in Encinitas. So yeah.. couple or 3 times a week, I indulge in a Chipotle burrito bowl. I encourage you to try one with the green chili sauce- medium hotness. Such good quality food for only about $6-7, IMHO.. All their ingredients are promoted as hormone free, organically raised, vegetarian fed etc.. good things. and I am in love with their minimalist decor. The raw edges of veneer core plywood exposed, foregoing the application of edgetape or solid wood nosings- which add lots of time and cost, but little else.. The minimalist menu.. simple, easy to understand.. really makes the menu at TGIF or Chilis or Applebees or (pick one) look like a French whore. Okay enough about that subject..
So Saturday I weigh myself pre-ride.. and for the first time in a very long time, I am under 170.. pre-ride.. where before I would set out weighing 172 and get home weighing 168. I'm firmly into the good side of 170. Success!
No riding for the past two days and I'm grumpy.. but to my credit, I have been getting up at 4:30 am to get to Boston appts at 7:00.. That, and dear wife has bronchitis and laryngitis, so I'm playing nurse maid for the past few days. Monday was a deliberate rest day. Last night, not so much.. but I was fatigued from the two early and long days in Boston and stressed about wife being sick, so.. let it be.
I'm eying Plainville and Wells Ave this weekend to have a little fun, but we'll see. If it's under 40 degrees either day, I'll be more inclined to do a couple of long rides. Playing it by ear.. Thanks for reading.

Dearest in Christ.

Must-contain-maniacal-laughter.. I populate one of my other blogs (www.scamlisting.blogspot.com) with about 4-5 of these Nigerian advance fee fraud e-mails, every day. (Yes it is purely for the Google Adsense dollars, but at least I am truthful- and believe it or not, people have thanked me for it) This is the first time I am seeing a person so twisted that they exploit and lie about terminal illness and religion in one neat little package. The scammers are getting more bold and more creative as the economy goes down in a death spiral. This one is original, I'll give it that. I encourage you to write to these cretins and have fun with a little bit of scam baiting.  From: From Charles and Elizabeth. charlestoure_001@yahoo.com Subject: Dearest in Christ. To: sarawak_cardiology@yahoo.com Date: Thursday, March 5, 2009, 8:21 AM From  :Mrs Grace Tapia Email :grace.tapia@ymail.com Address:N11-Olof Salem Street        P.O. Box 59022,Safat 13060 Kuwait. Dearest in Christ. With Due Respect And Humanity, I was compelled to write to you under a humanitarian ground. My name is Mrs Grace Tapia,from Kuwait.  I am married to late Dr Ramsey Tapia  ,who worked with an oil company in Ivory Coast for Thirty-two years  before he died in the year 2005. He died after a brief illness that lasted only four days Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of (US$5.8 M)(Five Million,Eight hundred Thousand United States Dollar) in a General Trust Account with a prime bank in Abidjan . Presently,this money is still with the bank. And Recently, My Doctor told me that I would not last for the next six months due to my cancer problem (cancer of the lever). Presently this money is still in the Bank.  Having  known my condition I  am in need of a HONEST Hearted Individual Christian or Church that i will utilize this fund the way I am going to instruct herein. I want somebody that will use this fund according to the desire of my late.husband to help Lessprivilaged people, orphanages,widows and propagating the word of God. I took this decision because I dont have any child that will inherit this fund, And I dont want in a way where this money will be used in an un Godly way. This is why I am taking this decision to hand you over this Fund. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going.I want you to always remember me in your daily prayers because of my up coming Cancer Surgery. Write back to me as soon as possible because any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another person for this same purpose, Hoping to read from you soon. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Bank in Abidjan. I will also issue you an authorisation letter that will prove you the present beneficiary of this fund. May God bless and keep us as we seek to serve him. Yours in Christ Mrs Grace Tapia

Hell

It's 60 degrees colder here than in San Diego and I'm back at work with another head cold. G-d help me to refrain from clawing my own eyes out and/or jumping off a ledge.

Airport security

They threw our son's 8 oz container of sealed vanilla milk in the trash (along with our three small bottles of Coke, which we figured would happen) A one liter bottle of water is $5.05

Only in Cali..

Will you have a female spin instructor who is over 60 and kicking your ass.. We are guest members of the Escondido YMCA this week and let me tell ya, this place makes the Kent County Y look like a pile of Puke, and it makes the best Bally's you ever saw look like a rinky dink P.O.S. Last night's spin class was FULL. After 5 days off the bike it was just the thing- I felt rested and strong. Tonight's class I held something back so that I could drill it hard tomorrow. Now I need to choose which class to do- there are 6 or 7 to choose from throughout the day, all with different instructors. In fact, the entire fitness schedule is up on a pair of 52" plasma screens- kind of like you would find in an airport. Impeccable. Exemplary.

T minus 12 hours

At about 4:00 am we will be putting shoes on our feet, grabbing our carry-on bags and skooting over to TF Green for our 6:30 am connection to Newark.. in none other than a Dash-8 400.. Yuk. I'm having trouble believing that I passed on taking my road bike on this trip. What was I thinking? Maybe I can rent a bike if the urge to ride is just.. unstoppable.

San Diego Time

We're at TF Green airport at 4:30 AM Saturday to catch a 6:30 flight to Newark, then a 6 hour flight to San Diego which has us landing about 9:30 AM. TIme enough to get checked into the hotel and on the road to Saturday's finish of the ToC? Mebbe. We are definitely spending Sunday in Escondido for the finish of the final stage.
I will not be bringing a bike with me on this trip- we're hoping to find a local YMCA where we can work out and join the spin classes. I will probably go a little insane about not being able to ride, especially if it's sunny and warm, but the thought of carefully packing a bike and paying $100 each way to check it, and potentially have the airline lose it [like the last time], isn't so attractive. In other news, I got my new Powertap sharkfin to replace the one which was repaired twice. No love from The PT folks on this- I payed the full $60 price for this part. Oh well. They did not have a lot of sympathy for the fact that my heart rate strap has never worked properly. I guess I should have reported the problem within the first year of using it, some time before clocking 12000 miles on the thing. I am so tempted to buy a pair of used ZIPP 404's with PT.. Tubular.. I can use this tank-like DT hoop as a training wheel and race on the good stuff. Before you begin to throw rotten tomoatoes for suggesting ZIPP with PT, consider that the very best data comes from racing. Being that this stuff interests me and engages me immensely, it makes sense for me where it might seem silly to others.
The last time I was in San Diego for the 2007 ToC stage in Long Beach. Mark Mc and I coincidentally raced the masters crit which was held right before the pros raced on the nearly identical course. I did not finish due to a crash. No, due to the officials not realizing there had been a crash- they pulled my group of 10 guys in complete ignorance- we were chasing after coming to a complete stop to avoid the crash.. which was caused by someone hitting one of those infamous reflective pucks at 33 mph. For the 1/2 race that I did complete, we averaged 28+ mph, in February. I think Mark got 3rd or 4th. I wonder who I which New Englanders I might bump into this time out in Escondido??

Bad Ass Mofo

Finally, my three year old idea to use a label maker on a race bike is catching on.. at least at Rock Racing:

Wanna Race?

From left: Murat, Bill D, Matt K, Joe B and Ralf G.This was not a repeat of last weekend where I trained more miles than the Tour Of Cali peloton raced in the past two days.. Instead I did my favorite hilly 40 mile loop- and twice! Saturday I went out in the afternoon with the intention of trashing myself from start to finish. I'm after a key piece of data and the only way to get it is to just drill it for over an hour. My previous attempt on this route was January 10th and my time was 2:19:39. This time, I took off 11 minutes (2:08:38) and added over 20w to both avg and norm power. This is especially encouraging when you consider that I'm about 3kg lighter than Jan 10th.. Our team's annual spring ride/meeting was Sunday and we repeated the same route, but at a pace where we could talk to eachother.. and besides the legs kept reminding me of Saturday's effort.

Rest Day

I was dog meat at last night's spin class. A hard weekend, followed by two days off the bike in favor of upper body and core work- legs are not feeling the love.

Monday-Tuesday.. Wednesday

Nautilus-Pilates.. SPIN Class tonight.

No Rest for the Weary

As much as I wanted to sleep-in late on Sunday morning, I knew that this would have been incompatible with my goals. A shorter and less intense ride was needed to keep the legs feeling loose and so I ventured north on 116 to meet some of the other RI locals at the infamous Gazebo between routes 6 and 6A. Timing my departure perfectly, I got there with a few minutes to spare in just under 40 minutes. Lucky for me, the ten of us meandered back towards the roads I know and love, and where route 14 crossed 117, I said my farewells and headed back east towards home. It was a wet and warm ride punctuated with some stiff winds and even some rain towards the end. All the snow runoff made for a messy ride though. The bike is in very sad shape.. Here's the data which you have come to expect: I adjusted the Polar pickup on the fork so it holds the signal better. I also repaired the Powertap- the two were off by only about 1/4 mile of distance. Thanks for reading.

First Century of 2009 in 5:12:30

Funny thing about today's ride. The Powertap quit working at the 4:20 mark (he-he) The question is, how long ago did the wire snap? Since I look down at it pretty often it was a minute at the most.. You might recall my very ugly but effective repair job I did two months ago. Well it's the first place I looked when I noticed the speed and watts readouts went blank. The purple wire was separated again. Your quick thinking hero had a back up plan, of course. His Polar heart rate monitor was busy recording speed, distance, heart rate, elevation and so forth, so he immediately hit the lap button to at least get good data for the rest of the ride. The Powertap was kaput, but it was reading 4:20 and 84 miles ridden- that's 19.4 miles per hour. Being so ticklishly close to the century mark, I decided then and there that I must do at least another 16 miles or else regret it until I die. Expecting to do the same average speed for the rest of the ride home, I did all kinds of math in my head in terms of how much longer I would need to ride. (One sucky thing about the Polar 720i- it refuses to give you the mileage of a ride, while you're recording data) With the Polar now recording a new lap for me, it seemed like a sure bet that one more hour would cinch the century, no problem. In fact, I got to my neighborhood a little bit early and just kept riding- went up Seven Mile Hill Road and back down it, adding 1:07 to the 4:20 I clocked on the PT. Surely this meant that my total would be around 105 miles or so. Unfortunately, I doubt if I'll ever know the true mileage- it turns out that the Polar was losing signal all throughout the ride and it only recorded 80 miles at the 4:20 point, where the Powertap recorded 84 (these two are usually dead nuts even) Oh well. I just wanted to know one thing- the exact duration of my 100 miles. Well it's anybody's guess, but I'm going with a conservative 19.2 mph average (the first 4:20 was 19.4) and going with 5 hours and 12.5 minutes to complete the first 100 miles. (16 miles in 52:30 makes sense) Sounds like a safe bet. Of this, I rode solo for one hour to meet the group, I rode 2:30 with the group, and then I rode 2 hours solo to get home. Please use the comments section to congratulate me and heap praise upon me for my accomplishment.
Overall ride time: 5 hours 28 minutes
Overall distance: 105 miles
Average speed: 19.2 mph

Above, the Powertap data is more reliable than the Polar, at least until wires break. The purple speed graph below shows a lot of 'zero' speed, when in reality we stopped only twice to pee, once for food and I stopped once to check out the PT.

Never forget your hard hat!

One of my jobsites has a good way of deterring visitors from forgetting to bring their own hard hats.. Below, we spy the 80 ton crane that I have to rent in order to hoist Premium grade woodwork in through the window of a Penthouse on Beacon Street. Why does the name of a local racing team come to mind? Interestingly, I have a team of carpenters working on all levels of this 11 story building, for the past year, and one of them is a former racer who was probably better known as "Big Dig". He has an open invitation to join my team, as his employer and mine are both owned by the same person, but I understand completely when the "life requirements" of a 20-something make it necessary to hang the bike up for a while. Been there, Derek. Your place is reserved, whenever you're ready.

Successful Resting

Let me reiterate, it's a "rest week", not a "rest weekend"..
This week: A grand total of 3 hours logged in four sessons on the trainer, none exceeding 130 watts average. I've been good. I'll do another hour tonight with a few 60 second spin-ups to 140 rpm in a small gear. The legs always feel "funny" after a rest week, and gently reminding them that they will be required to do very hard work after said rest, is probably a good idea.
It will be a good weekend to pound out a couple of solid 4 hours rides, and I will refrain from doing them with a hangover this time!

Frederiek Nolf found dead in hotel room at Tour of Qatar

Exerpt from VN article:
"The Topsport Vlaanderen team quit the tour Thursday morning and race organizers were making arrangements to return riders and staff to Belgium. Other riders on the team have also withdrawn from the Etoile de Bessèges in southern France, said team director Walter Planckaert.
According to Merckx Thursday's fifth stage — from the Camel Race Track to the Doha Foundation — will be shortened to 40 kilometers and neutralized in remembrance of the young Belgian.
"Out of respect for Frederiek Nolf, the riders will form a cortege throughout the stage," said Merckx."

Catching up with last week

I didn't post much last week because of a nasty sinus infection which developed on Sunday, the day after my epic 87 mile ride (talking about 10 days ago here) In spite of my head feeling like a drum, I went to YMCA and did my weightlifting Sunday night. Monday I was kaput- could barely get out of bed- I called in sick.. this didn't stop me from going to my spin class at 6:00 though. I felt horrible in the beginning, but at the end I was better. Tuesday I dragged myself to work and put in a double shift until 11:00 pm, leaving the office only for lunch and to do the Pilates class at 6:30. Feeling a little better at this point. Wednesday was awful in terms of what I went through at work. People generally need to exploit weakness (if/when they can find one) in order to get the best of me.. and a handful of different people decided to throw me under the bus on Monday while I was out sick and still answering calls and e-mails with my Blackberry. This made for a highly stressful and depressing week overall, but all the more reason to stick to the training program- I did indeed go to the SPIN class at the Y on Wed after work. Thursday I rested- no bike, no workouts or Pilates or anything. Just rest. In fact, I went to bed at 8:00 and slept until 7:00 am. I really needed that. Friday was business as usual, though thoughts of a different career path were very strong and at the end of the day, I was almost surprised that I wasn't packing my things into a cardboard box. Friday night I did a highly challenging 75 minute ride which averaged 225 watts- I drilled a large number of 1-3 minute intervals with 1-2 minutes of rest in between. Much of the week's frustrations were driven into the pedals I think. Saturday an easier indoor ride with three FT intervals of 5:00 a piece- not leg breaking, but it felt hard after the previous workout. Saturday night your hero went out drinking and shooting pool with good friend and former co-worker Kaan Duru. We went to Snookers where I easily won all but two games in a three hour period. I used to play for money. My cue stick was purchased when I was 16, about 22 years ago. I'm a little better than average right now because I hardly ever play, but with a little practice, I'd have no fear of entering a local 9 ball tournament.. So Saturday night I pretty much had a good time and drowned my sorrows with six Sam Adams Light beers and a Mojito for good measure. In bed at 1:30 with a spinning head, meant that I was in rare form Sunday morning for the LBL ride, which you've already read all about. Sunday night I did not go and lift weights- too tired and cramped up. I did my Nautilus last night though, and wow, I looked in the mirror after all that lifting and couldn't help noticing the torso taking on a very distinctive V shape. That fires me up. This morning I did a 20 minute recovery spin and tonight there's Pilates, so.. yeah the beat goes on. This is a rest week so I will be reigning myself in on the SPIN class and the intervals. I'll save myself for a nice long hard ride on Saturday when it's predicted to be over 40 degrees out. Thanks for reading.

Sunday's LBL ArcenCiel Ride

The ArcenCiel team has an annual ride that's called the "LBL" and I was fortunate to be a part of it this Sunday. Your hero had a terrible day of cramping and low energy, but the good people in today's ride got me to the end of the 66 miles with lots of generous pacing, pushing and encouragement. I think the total TSS of Friday and Saturday was more than I realized, and that the six or so beers I uncharacteristically consumed late into Friday night did me no favors. (It was a very rare guy's night out- and such nights are not to be wasted on sobriety) Anyway, it was a hilly and scenic ride where I had no idea where we were most of the time, and I never knew when the next hill would appear, or how far it was to the top. This is never an advantage. The first hill where I cramped hard was in CT- actually on the Stonington RR course, heading up to the winery in reverse. I was doing A-ok up until about 2/3 the way up, then I fell apart very hard and very suddenly when the cramps attacked. Then we hit a steep pitch not long afterward where I was cramped so badly I thought the legs were going to just lock up and send me to the ground. The profile chart below shows two similar hills in succession- these are the ones which hurt me, and ironically on the really big hump afterwards I was able to hold it together without too much difficulty. Humor me as I make my excuses- it's the fourth week of a strong and gradual build-up of TSS- to wit, I've gone from 50 to 70 in the span of 31 days. (Same period last year I went from 43 to 53) Check it:
The next chart tells the story in detail. I also pasted in the values of todays CP60- which gives a very encouraging 255 watts of normalized power. On this date last year, my best Norm CP60 was 243 watts, and I was 7-8 pounds heavier too. Need to look for the positive in today's poor performance, and there it is. Even on an off day, at the end of a challenging 4 weeks, the data proves that I'm way ahead of the curve relative to 2008.Thanks for reading. Here's the profile of today's ride:

M1 Racing is growing

Our budget for fuel is the same in 2009 as it was in 2008. This means that with gas prices under $2 (instead of over $3) we can afford to support some more racers. Reach out to me if you are interested using reiscotools@yahoo.com. There are some requirements for those of you who want to be considered for the "A" team. If you are as fanatical about training and racing as I am, it's obviously a big plus.
M1 Racing are also in the process of developing a package of benefits for prospective members of our new "B" team. This program is going to be an attractive way for new racers to be in an environment which nurtures, develops and teaches the things which can't be found in any book about bike racing. It's also a smart way to shoe-horn yourself into a pretty darn good New England team, one that is attached to one of the finest racing clubs in the country, the Genesee Valley Cycling Club.
You can learn more about Millwork One Racing as well as the new "B" Team by writing me an e-mail or by attending the Providence Bicycle Introduction to Bicycle Racing Night on February 19th. I will be there along with Mark McCormack and Matt Bodzione of NBX Bikes to help people find their way into New England's strong local racing scene. This event requires you to RSVP to either joe@providencebicycle.com or to me at reiscotools@yahoo.com
See you there!

Bananas in the tailpipes

You know the scene- Beverly Hills Cop- Eddy Murphy stuffs Taggart's tailpipes full of bananas. That's what it feels like to have a nasty sinus infection, I think. I'm miserable- all yesterday, all night, and so far today. To add insult to injury, our heating oil company "forgot" to fill us up and we ran out of oil Saturday night. House was 50 degrees- thank goodness for the propane fireplace in our mester bedroom. They came and filled us up on Sunday, but now our hot water heater is not working, probably from sucking down blockage from the bottom of the oil tank.. Oil company is back here today, working on it.. I hope they realize that this is a problem which they themselves created. At any rate, I'm home sick today- caught myself a bad head cold this weekend- though I suspect that it's been incubating for at least a week. Saturday your hero did the unthinkable and went out again for 5 hours- 4:45 of it actually riding. Saturday morning at the 8:00 am ArcenCiel ride, our large group had the pleasure of including FUJI team members Mark M. and Tobi S. I rode down from my house with a nice tailwind, then I rode with the group for 2 hours, then I broke off right after we passed Ninigret Park and headed solo up Route 2 all the way home in 1:45, just like last weekend. This time it was a little tougher, with winds gusting to 30 mph, it was slow going on some of the flat stretches. So 4:45 of ride time overall, 87 miles. It was not terribly cold out, but I can tell you that the temp was highest when I left the house- a balmy 39 degrees. It dropped throughout the morning. I had some cramping issues! It was an occasional ping here and there, mostly in the hamstrings, mostly in the 5th hour. My left hamstring is still a little tight and has some soreness.

Last night, I felt lousy but I forced myself to stick to the Nautilus program.. went to the YMCA to do my double set of weightlifting. Did a 15:00 run on the treadmill first (1.5 miles) and hopefully this was not a mistake. My hamstring feels worse than it did after the ride Saturday. Tonight's spin class was full as of last night, so I'm on the waiting list.

This speaks for itself

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Rest: Thursday or Friday?

I'm not sure if this will carry into the racing season, but so far it's felt pretty good to let the spring unwind a little on Thursday instead of Friday. Last night I did YOGA at the YMCA, which was not too challenging. It was more like 75 minutes of non-stop stretching, going from one pose to the next. I'm pretty good at the more difficult balance poses. Definitely a good way to test for weakness in the feet and ankles. Tonight I'm going to play it by ear on the indoor trainer, but definitely plan to include 2-4 varied durations of FT. I'm getting ready for a fitness test which should take place in about 10-14 days. My expectation is an FT in the 250-255w range.

SPIN data

I surprised myself tonight- the computers on the SPIN bikes do not display average watts, you only see current watts. The average is displayed only at the end when you stop pedaling. After last week going from 200w to 184 w average between Mon and Wed, I expected something similar tonight, but instead the numbers went up: 231 watts, 87 rpm, 156 bpm, 62:14 duration. I was feeling pretty good tonight, and with dear wife at my side this time, I must have been trying to impress her or something. She did a great job, though she would enjoy it more if she used the new Shimano spinning shoes I bought her a few weeks ago! So my numbers are looking strong and I'm encouraged. Some will opine that I'm going to burn out in May.. I say to them: What's wrong with having excellent form in early spring- nothing wrong with being the fastest mofo in March and April- and Success breeds Success. Having a crappy and out-of-form spring where you're struggling to race your way into shape, is not the recipe for a good season, it's the training plan of a procrastinator. I've done it myself enough times to know that it leads only to mediocrity. I'm tired of being 'best of the worst' or 'worst of the best'.. No thanks, not this season thank you very much..
The plan is to rest tomorrow- maybe a recovery spin if time permits.

DO try this at home

Change of plans Tuesday- A conflict of schedules required me to skip Pilates last night, so instead, I did Individual Leg Training, later on. (This is the poor man's Powercrank) It goes like this:
20:00 Warm-up
3:00 right leg in 39x16 (other leg is unclipped and resting back by the rear skewer)
1:00 spin both legs
3:00 repeat with left leg in 39x16
1:00 spin both legs
Repeat 2 more times
5:00 Tempo
5:00 Cool down
When I first did these a few weeks ago, I had trouble turning the 39x19 for 1:30, and only one or two sets at that. Now I'm doing three sets of 3:00 in the 39x16. The last 15-30 seconds should hurt but still have good form- no chain slap.

Monday Recap- 172 pounds

Here we go again?? Well, sort of.. This may well be a repeat of last week in all ways except one: that is, your hero will demonstrate certain feats of strength, relative to last week. Tonight's proof of adaptation came in the form of a 67 minute long SPIN class- last Monday's data is found in last Monday's post, below. Tonight I added 25 watts to the average, in comparison:
225 watts, 92 rpm, 166 bpm. This is partly because our instructor had us up and out of the saddle a lot more this time. I also believe that Saturday's long ride combined with Sunday night's Active Recovery paid some dividends. I hope to be up early to do a light spin, and then a Pilates class tomorrow night.
It may seem as though I'm doing too much too soon, but relative to the goal I'm trying to reach, I'm just doing what's required. I can honestly report that as of this date, my weight is lower than it was at the peak of my form in late June/early July of 2008. A lighter Murat is a faster [more powerful] Murat. I've enhanced my training plan to include work on my core (Pilates), upper body (Nautilus), flexibility (Yoga) and regular bursts of FT level intensity (SPIN class). It's a lot of work, but the variety has made me into a very engaged participant. I'd rather not be fretting about the need to lose weight and the need to add "structural fitness" come April and May, when I can instead focus on getting some good results. Propelling 15-16 fewer pounds down the road is going to make a huge difference in 2009. I'm committed.

Late Night Spin

I worked hard yesterday, and I can feel some stiffness coming on, especially in my right hamstring. Just before dinner, I went to the Y and worked out. First I did a 15 minute run on the treadmill to warm up- 1.4 miles to be exact. Then I did the Nautilus circuit (skipping over all leg machines) I hit all the upper body machines twice in one circuit. Pushed myself a little. The weights I'm now using are about mid way down the stack- though I continue to do between 15 and 25 reps. I felt pretty stiff and pumped after this workout, but I believe this is still better than being a flexible weakling. After dinner I took a 20 minute power nap, awoke to the smell of fresh coffee and indulged in a cup with dear wife while Reis took in an episode of Bob the Builder. They headed up for bed at 10:00 and I opted to do a recovery spin before bed. So I'm now turning 90 rpm in my 39x19- only 130 watts. This has helped me to pass 10 minutes already, not bad.. Recovery rides are boring.. And blog posts about recovery rides are especially lame... But I think it's important to do something light with the legs on the day following a 70 mile ride.. If you've followed me along all this past week to see what I'm up to- many thanks for showing interest. I'm not trying to impress anyone- this journal is more for my benefit than it is yours.. But if it serves to inspire you or other readers to get off their tookus and get going with a proper 2009 training program, beginning NOW, then that's Fantastic. If 2008 was a disappointment for you, then please refrain from repeating the training program which failed you in 2008. I'm not a coach (at present) but that's fundamental common sense advice. Thanks for reading.

Ninigret?!?!

It was inevitable. My entire ride today was on Route 2. Not the most exciting place to be.. Short punchy rollers, flats in between windswept turf farms, and some rough patches which require one to ride center lane. Made it to the Arcenciel meetup point in 1:05 - into a mild but vexing headwind. We had 10 of us at the beginning but lost one.. Meaning we always had a lone tailgunner at the back. I used Route 2 to get down there, and our group continued down Route 2 all the way to Charlestown.. All the way to Ninigret.. Where it was time for me to stop pressing my luck and take the B-Line home, which happened to be a u-turn and back up Route 2 the entire way. It's a good thing I reversed when I did. My ride ended up being 4 hours, and towards the end I was daydreaming of food. Both bottles were frozen- even though I added powerade to one and the other was insulated. In fact, I think I was a bit dehydrated. In the 3rd and 4th hours I had some cramps zap me in the quads and hamstrings. 173 pounds when I left the house. When I got home I raided the kitchen: two fruit yogurts, an orange, a 16 oz Shaklee milkshake, and some other stuff I can't even remember. Even after all the replenishment, I was still 171 pounds after this ride. PT says 70 miles, and I noticed that some data was cut out maybe due to the cold maybe power lines.. Probably did more than 4 hours and 70 miles. The temp when I left was about 14 degrees. It was 23 when I returned. Thanks for reading.

Thursday: Rest, Friday: ILT

Thursday after work I was pretty much cooked, so I napped on the couch after eating some home made pizza.. went to bed at 11:00 and had an extremely restless night of sleep, sprinkled with 3 or 4 instances of becoming awake. Woke up tired.. Today (Friday) was an especially challenging day at work. For the first time in perhaps years, I had to skip lunch and surprisingly, I did not turn into a four headed dragon. After work though.. I went to Chipotle with a vengeance and helped myself to a burrito bowl, which is basically the contents of a burrito minus the pasty tortilla- mainly rice and steak with some chili sauce, peppers, onions, sour cream, and grated cheese. There are worse things a person can eat. So I'm looking at my 42 day TSS constant and trying to increase it very gradually week over week. From the latest four weeks of data, I see that the past four Fridays go like this: 45.0 49.3 52.7 54.8
I'm thinking that a monthly increase of between 12 and 15 is going to be both manageable and fruitful for now through March, though I can change course pretty swiftly if it's necessary. Having all this data at my fingertips feels like cheating.. Of course there are times when I need to say screw the charts and the TSS- you're tired- take a day off.. Like some of you very self-aware train-by-feel au-naturel under-trained types, I don't need a Powertap or a HRM to tell me that I'm tired either, BSPVD.. Anywho, here's the chart telling you the story of tonight's workout: 20:00 warm-up, then 2:30 individual leg training in the 39x17, 1:00 breaks in between, 3 total sets, followed by 20:00 of tempo with some high cadence (105-120, depending on what's playing on 95.5 WBRU) followed by some slower work. I'm starting to really like The Killers.

S.tart P.edaling I.ndoors N.ow

Spin class after work was a hoot. Some of the things they make you do are just nuts- I skip what I don't like.. such as when the instructor has 100 pound women turning 5-6 watts/kilo at 45 RPM.. I'm not letting the watts go higher than I can comfortably do for 5 minutes at 70 rpm. Foolishness if you ask me. So yeah- S.P.I.N. could stand for a lot of things.. but some instructors want to rename it G.R.I.N.D. I think.. My vitals for last night, not as impressive as Monday: 87 RPM, 184 watts, 162 bpm, in 60 minutes of duration. I was on a different bike, who knows how accurate these things are, but I felt tired, no doubt about that. After the SPIN class, I hopped onto a treadmill for 15 minutes. 3 minutes walking 4 mph, 9 minutes jogging at 6 mph, then another 3 minutes walking at 4 mph. Trying to ease myself into better running form, which is extremely easy to do when you're starting from a baseline that equals "untrained". All I want to do in 2009 [for running] is to get used to how it feels, so that I'm not so blown away during cross season.
I'm taking it easy tonight. There's a "YOGA Flow" class at 6:30 which I may try to do.. Thanks for reading.

Tuesday Recap +

Don't worry, I will tire of this eventually. Slept a little better last night, and got to the Y after work in time for the Pilates class- man was it full tonight. And two other guys in there this time. This did not make it any less embarrassing when your hero, during a more strenuous maneuver involving his very weak trunk/abdominal muscles, let one rip in all it's audible glory. Fortunately, it had a bark but no bite. I've been in there other times and witnessed some silent yet deadly emissions from some of the women. Made my nose hairs curl.. After getting home I was not content to got o bed without a proper turn of the pedals so I did a light spin for one hour while opening mail, reading stuff, even wrote an e-mail.. After uploading some data from the PT I decided to take a look at the past 40 or so days of training and compare to the year before period. Below, we have Dec 1 to the present. Farther down below, we have the same period one year ago.
Looking at one year ago, it's very easy to see why my knees were shot after Jan 13- I did two epic rides that weekend- 4+ hours on Sat and 3+ hours on Sunday. You can see the huge spike there in the pink ATL. I have avoided such Tom Foolery this winter, and I'm increasing training load in much more metered doses, as you can see in the above chart showing you how my CTL (42 day constant in Blue) is moving up a lot more gradually this year. Year before, CTL jumped 11-12 points in two days, from an already low TSS of 45/day. It's little wonder I needed to get the Active Release therapy to my knees. No such problems in 2009.

Monday Recap

40 minute spin in the morning, after an extremely restless 6 hours of sleep. After work, I bolted over to the Y for spin class with my wife. A challenging 61:41 at 200w average, 94 rpm and 159 bpm. The new shoes feel weird but gave me no discomfort.- my old DMTs have the DIY heat molded insoles and I didn't realize how well they conform to me, til tonight.