Rick Newhouse Vitality prime

The socks are part of another prime that I won, but the rest of the stuff pictured occupied a doubled up brown paper bag that is the "Vitality Prime", along with a 12 pack of Mountain Dew and a six pack of Newport Storm. The last items in the bag are hidden where family will hopefully not find them.
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2011 Rick Newhouse Criterium

I won't try to speak for teammates Dave or Adam. I had decent sensations in the legs today, but not good enough for being in the break with Vollers, Mark, Tobi and Ciaran.. On the bright side I took the infamous "Vitality Prime" (this is my 2nd time- I also won it in 2009) and scored a big sack of schwag including some playboys. Even better, I also won the prime on the lap right before, which made me feel pretty manly. It was a race of attrition- the wind was brutal. It was strung out single file and often in echelons all day. There was never any rest because if you let any kind of gap open in front of you it was over. Many guys cracked and lost contact and most of them already had a race in their legs. With 5 up the road there were 3 paying places left. John B attacked on the final lap and did exactly what I wanted to do. He held it to the line for 6th! Good for him. I set myself up for the sprint less than optimally, got caught out in the wind and couldn't pass Bill Y or Gary A so I ended up 10th. Lots of 45+ starters at the beginning made it a pretty good sized field of about 45-50 I think. The wind today was INTENSE! We were in the gutter all day getting blown around and into each other. Peter V won. I jumped into the Pro race afterwards and fell apart around 8 to go. I felt okay for about 50 minutes but the 35+ fatigue caught up with me eventually. Didn't feel so bad when I saw some other big engines pulling off as well. Actually, I got pulled or else I would have grinded it out solo to the finish. I hate not finishing. Overall a good day with great weather, sunny skies and no crashes. My only regret is letting someone else execute my plan on that final lap. I could have caught up to him but I'd also be bringing a bunch of opponents with me. I'm not anywhere near any kind of peak right now so all things considered, I'm pleased. This was a great practice race for me.. And the 3rd time in 4 tries that I finished 10th (I was 12th in 2009)
Big huge hat tip to Todd B and Randy R for making bike racing look so easy. Also salute Tim M for winning the Pro race and Dave K for winning the 45+.
Thanks for reading.
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2011 Flat No 1: in the rain

I checked the radar. I could see a band of rain approaching from NYC but it was a long way off and headed towards Boston not RI.. So when I left at 1:30 the plan was to ride for at least 3 hours..
The rain started after 40 minutes- light at first.. then it got more intense when I turned north onto route 3 from Division Street (right there at the mouth of Big River) M original plan was to go south on Route 3, all the way to 138/Switch Road/Kings Factory to Route 1 North all the way home- about 70 miles. With the rain I ended up heading north on 3 and did my usual 32 mile loop.. but not before a puncture on 117. I had a spare tube and all- no patch kit though. Normally I carry two tubes, not today. The flat repair took a few minutes- no problemo.. but now the rain had stopped. Dilemma- do I try to salvage my ride plans and risk it without a spare tube? Of course not. By this time I was cold and pissed and my new shoes were soaked through. After getting going again and warming back up I thought about doing another lap of this 32 mile route- i could always stop at the house and grab a a patch kit.. but getting my brand new road bike and shoes soaked like this was unbearable to me. Especially the new DMT shoes. The bike could handle it, but road shoes stand to degenerate in many ways from being wet. At least i wore my shoe covers so the DMTs were spared form road dirt and grime- just wet but clean. It sucks that it was nice all morning but I was too busy to get out there in time to miss this rain. Oh well. I got a decent workout. It's pouring now. Tonight I'll put my bike on the new Kinetic Road Machine and make it scream for a couple of hours. Racing Sunday at Rick Newhouse, if the weather doesn't suck too badly. One of our new teammates has a title to defend in the 45+ race. So does my boy Reis in the kid's event, though he is less enthusiastic for whatever reason.

2011 Wells Ave Crit No 1

Missed the opener the weekend before and with the nice weather predicted, I informed my dear wife well in advance that I was not going to miss it this time.. Still, I always entertain the possibility that waking up or being properly rested might be a challenge.. as was the case this morning. I slept in fits and starts from about 5:00 am until 8:30, when I finally got up. Where I live, you can't reach Wells Ave on time unless you hit the road by 9:00. No coffee left in the house and skipping the raisin bran meant that I did not have the pleasure of my daily morning elimination. Yeah, since turning 40 I find it okay to talk about my plumbing. When it's working smoothly I'm happy.. Anyway.. sorry. I had 30 minutes to get going. Two Eggo waffles with butter and Aunt Jemima Lite Syrup, one english muffin toasted with butter and slathered with honey, one multivitamin, one paper sack with all my clothing and bottles and gear piled into it like sedimentary rock. I made it there with plenty of time to spare- the Bs were just rolling off when I parked.
My form has been feeling a little bit short circuited this week. Chris Hinds Crit- 90 minutes of torture- took more out of me than I realized at the time. I dug very deep to be in there, and my lack of performance in the 35+ race which followed tells us the same thing. Sunday I took an easy bike path ride with my son- like 15 miles. That's a lot for a 7 year old- but he loves it. Mon and Tues I rested. I felt horribly tired. Wed and Thurs I went out and did some long rides, mostly in zone 3 but a lot of 2 and 4 in there between the climbs and the descents. Friday I wanted to do an easy spin but no time.. Saturday I eeked out a 2 hour ride which was relatively easy-going and just what I needed to shake out the cobwebs. Would I feel like total poo at Wells Ave? I wasn't feeling so sure. Sensations in the legs had not been encouraging at all this week..
Meeting up with my team was a relief. We had a shit year in 2010.. not to mean our results were horrible but rather that our morale was very low. This year is going to be a lot better. We lined up and couldn't begin racing because there were not enough marshals to monitor and direct traffic. Finally we got a late start but the course was down one marshal. Lots of traffic, OMG! We had to slow down damn near every other lap for cars which were parking, turning, stopping in front of us. It's a relief no one was hurt.
So on to the racing. Nothing got away. Before the start we decided that our best scenario is always going to be a field sprint, and we had two opportunities to show our colors: at the 1/2 way prime and at the ending. Long story short. On the 20th lap there's a 2 place cash prime and there were 3 guys with a 5-10 second gap. Matt, Kyle and I moved to the front with 1/2 lap to go. The field opened up on the right allowing me to go full gas with Matt and Kyle on my wheel. We went out of the saddle before the curve even begins and I buried myself long enough to reach the break and give Matt and Kyle an armchair ride to the finish. We were 1-2 in the 1/2 way prime. I was smoked for a couple of laps and retreated to the back of the field to recover..
20 laps later we executed it a bit differently. I was caught up in some traffic while I tried to hang on to the coattails of my teammates, but the last lap was neutralized due to traffic and so we had to do another lap. This time, all kinds of tired legs crowded the last lap and made it hard to find the space needed to change lanes and go. I made sure to plan my moves through the other sprinters and by carefully maneuvering through the dead legs I got clear and almost finished 3rd behind my two teammates.. but the finish line came too soon. I needed another 10 meters.. But hey I'll take 4th- there's no shame in that. Matt won and Kyle was 2nd. We took all but $5 of the cash payouts and divided it up between us, as it should be.
Next week is Rick Newhouse and maybe this time I will skip the Pro race to focus on the 35+. I'm getting too old to be doubling up on race day. I'd rather have one great result than have two mediocre ones..
Thanks for reading.

Thursday: Another 200 TSS

I am still in this fatigued state and wondering if maybe I am fighting an infection or something.. It's peculiar.. Up until the day I ran out of a supplement that I've been taking for a month or so, I was fine. Then I ran out and I feel tired, sore, unmotivated, and irritable. Withdrawel symptoms? I didn't know that BCAAs can do that! One things for sure, when I take them regularly I feel like a million bucks. Thursday I did another 52 miles- an out and back ride to Pt Judith in about 2:45. Route 1 is in a sorry state until you get down to 1A, after that it's pretty okay.. Winds were out of the East, but the ride south was a lot slower than the ride home. I've done this round trip in as little as 2:28 and yesterday it seemed like an unbeatable benchmark to me. No way I can go that much faster, I thought to myself. Then as I was perusing old charts in Training Peaks I stumbled into my 2010 Chris Thater Crtiterium data. I didn't realize it at the time, but the final 60 seconds of the 2/3 crit averaged 32.1 mph. The final 30 seconds: 32.8 mph, 20 seconds: 36 mph, 10 seconds: 38.7 mph and the last 5 seconds to the line: 39.7 mph. I had never ridden so hard and so fast for a 24th place finish before.. and this was my 2nd race of the day. The Chris Thater Crit pays 20 deep, in case you wonder why I was sprinting. When you're cross eyed like that it can be hard to tell if you're in the money, so it's better to assume that you have a shot at it. I will definitely be going back this year- I love that venue.

Wednesday: Ninigret No 1

Yesterday's ride was such a technical decision.. Winds gusting out of the southwest meant that I needed to ride down towards Ninigret.. where the first Wed night crit of the year was scheduled for 6:30.. Problem being it's too cold to ride out there, race and ride back.. not to mention dark. Additionally, the winds were scheduled to shift and blow from the Northeast at some point in the afternoon.. and 50% chance of showers was predicted for the evening.. I wanted to do a solid 3 hours, and I also wanted to race.. but better to keep my money and just get the volume over with before the wind shifted, before the rain arrived, before it got dark, and before I froze my ass off. Thusly, I decided to hit the road at 3:00 pm and ride down Route 2 all the way to Route 1 and head north back to my house. Instead of jumping onto 1A in Narragansett, I continued north on Route 1, even with the heavy traffic, it's the better choice because it's faster and the shoulder is very wide and safe. This knocked about 4 miles off my usual 60 miler and I ended up doing exactly three hours- about 56 miles. The winds heading down were such that I averaged only 15 mph by the time I reached Route 1. On the way back though- I averaged it back up to 18.5 by easily going 25+ mph the whole way home.
I wonder who won at Ninigret? That wind must not have been too much fun, lap after lap after lap.
Thanks for reading.

Under the weather

I'm feeling extra fatigued since racing on Saturday. Sunday I did 15 easy miles with Reis on the bike path. Monday rest. Tuesday more rest.. Tomorrow I resolve to do some long steady distance of at least 3 hours.. I've been feeling a little bit down these past few days too.. and self-medicating.. with food. I'm so done with winter.. which is why minute 6:00 does it for me. Seasons.. Funny. (Nothing against Canadians!)

Chris Hinds Criterium P-1-2-3 Results

Here's an update to this entry with more results for Cat 4, Cat 5, 45+ and some Chris Hinds Criterium photos I took after I was done racing:

Apparently I only had legs for one race today. My lungs tightened up so much in between the Pro and the 35+ races that it was impossible to continue, especially after the (unwise) aggressive racing I did in the first 5 laps.. This breathing issue cracked me and I just did some cool down laps by myself.. Then it started to rain/sleet/hail and then I decided I wanted to stay dry so I took myself out of it and went to my car. As we can tell from these results, nearly half of the pro field DNF'ed. I had fun out there. As always J-Lo manages an excellent race venue where everyone feels at home and has a good time, and for a great cause. All proceeds go to fund Sam Hinds' college fund, who lost his father Chris to cancer about 9 years ago. Thanks for reading.

2011 Data Round-up: First 90 days

Today marks the 90th day of 2011 and I like to occasionally stop and see where I am relative to previous seasons. Before I get into it, I want to inform all three of you that I know how uncool it is to talk about our watts with others. Let's face it: if I really wanted to be cool I wouldn't have a blog in the first place.. and if you were really cool you wouldn't be here reading this shit.. So first I'll share the awesome flowchart explaining that no matter what you do, talking about your numbers makes you look like a tool. Okay we get it:

With that funny schematic from Velonews behind us, we can move on. Below we can look at a summary of my last six weeks and also my last 12 months of time, distance, TSS, kJ, etc. I think you will find it interesting that I have been training light every other week since returning from Florida. It wasn't a conscious decision or part of a master plan. It is basically what I've felt like doing, dictated partly by life requirements, fatigue levels, the temperature outside, and my motivation. Let's just say it's what felt right. Moving forward, I expect to build in blocks of 2 weeks during April and changing it up to 3 weeks in May. Or not. Life is unpredictable.

The chart below? Boooo-riiiiing. but still one of my favorites. I'm not going to show you the same period one year before. Just take my word for it that I didn't flirt with a CTL of 90 [in 2010] until after the 3rd week of April. CTL is the blue line which indicates "chronic training load"- a running average of the previous 28 days of training. For the data challenged, I'll give one piece of advice about this particular chart- you're not really flying on the bike until after you're deep into 100 CTL for a few weeks. Last season that period was from 8/1 thru 9/30, and I could tell that I was capable of very good things during that time. This year it appears that I'll be into 100 CTL by mid April. Let's hope I don't get sick of riding and take an entire month off the bike as I did in 2010. (See May/June, above) Maybe I'll rest a bit in May (during all those pesky road races with hills)

Lastly but not least, tonight's workout on the Kinetic Road Machine. This is by far my favorite workout. It's an unofficial fitness test, but not the kind that necessarily indicates your Functional Threshold. Sure if I did this set after a hard hour of warm-up or after a 5 minute VOmax interval, then it can be used for FT (by deducting 5% from norm power). But the way I use it, it's more a measure of how much I've adapted since the previous attempts. It's good to see that since my last attempt exactly one month ago on Feb 28, I've added 14w to my CP20 and 14w to my Normalized CP20. I do not expect you to be impressed. As I said, this is just a very good way for one to gauge their progress and determine if the training stress is forcing the good kind of adaptation. Those of you without a power meter can choose a nice 5 mile loop or stretch of road and test your fitness by doing a private TT every 3-4 weeks. Keep track of your times and see your progression. It doesn't have to be done in an "on/off" manner- that's just how I prefer to do it because it imitates criterium racing, which is where I'm interested in being successful. Anyway it goes something like this:
30:00 warm-up (intensity is at your discretion- but I don't recommend Z2 for the whole time)
1:00 FT+30-50% (for me this is a little under 5w/kg)
1:00 recovery z2-z3 (again, for me a little under 3w/kg)
Repeat total of 10 times (20 minutes total)- in the final minute, recover for the first 30 seconds and then uncork everything you have left for the final 30 seconds, then go for 45-50 if you have it in you, all out. Do it to complete failure.
30:00 cool down, z1-2
This workout does a good job of teaching you to handle the stresses thrown at you in the final 20 minutes of a criterium. You can't shut it down in between intervals- you should still be making woman noises during the "recovery" periods. I usually shift between the 53x15 and the 53x19 during this set. Everyone is different. If you drill it too hard in the first few intervals, you will not want to finish and you risk aborting your workout prematurely. Shoot for 10 minutes the first time and build from there. Usually by the end of the 20th minute, my heart rate is into the 190s, but going back and forth between 165 and 180 the rest of the time. Remember: the excuse you hear most often from riders who get dropped in their first few races of the season is "those accelerations killed me". Well here's your chance to avoid that early ride of shame back to the car.. It goes without saying that you need a base of about 1000 miles before doing a workout like this..Have fun!

Charge Pond and Wells Ave

Teammate Kyle Gates took a very respectable 4th place at Saturday's 4th edition of the 2011 Charge Pond Series. It was my first race on the new Fuji and I am loving this bike.. but not the valve extenders.. they gave me fits of rage just before the start of the race Saturday, requiring me to try three different pumps before realizing that the tube was punctured. Per usual, I made it to the race with 20 minutes to get ready, and then I was dealing with this flat tire and shitty valve extenders with 2 minutes to start, smashing my hand into the brand new titanium cassette, bleeding, and I rolled up to the back of the field with less than a minute to spare. Warm up? I took care of that with a one-lap bridge attempt about 4 laps into the race. With 6 to go I bridged across to a couple of juniors and we had a nice gap. Unfortunately I could only pull through one time after bridging and we were caught with 5 to go.. Overall I felt pretty good throughout- not put into too much difficulty except for the times I was off the front. I like the course though- very exciting to race there with the undulations and the narrowness of the roads. Long story short I fought like hell to get myself into the top ten going into the last corner and that's about where I finished- either 9th or 10th. They don't rank you correctly past top 7 though so who knows what the official results will tell us. I could be mistaken about this, but judging from the previous weeks' results.. that was Frank friggin McCormack and one of his SONS driving the front of the race with 1/2 lap to go. How cool would it be if YOUR FATHER could lead you out to a successful win? If I'm correct about this, then well, words can't describe how cool that is to me. I salute them.
Wells Ave? Didn't race there, but wanted to. It ended up that my friend Thad Lavalee won it and our "king of spring" Kyle Gates took 2nd. I slept-in until about 12:30.. and took a day off from training.
What happened at Michael Schott? I have no idea but I'll be looking for results and reports on that one. Thanks for reading.

First ride: FUJI SST 1.0

I took the new road bike out for it's maiden voyage- leaving the carbon wheels on and not even installing any bottle cages. All I added was the mount for the Garmin and headed out for a "quickie" with the new mistress. I didn't feel exceptionally fast on this 32 mile route (did the same route 3/15) because it was 40 degrees out and windy. Well I felt fast heading south and I felt fast when I turned west onto Frenchtown Road, but the rest of the ride felt slow and miserable. One thing I noticed about this bike right off the bat- it loves to corner- practically on auto pilot. All I have to do is think "right" and it goes right. By the end of the ride, I was pretty winded because I kept a pace somewhere in between tempo and LT and what felt like a slow pace actually took 9 minutes off my previous attempt of this route! Yee-haw! Must be kind of like when you're driving a Lexus doing 100 mph and it feels like you're only going 60. This bike is Fa-ast. Thanks for reading.

One troubling thing though- the headset was completely loosened up when I got home. Hopefully I did not ovalize my head tube or ride like that for very long.

Pro Cyclists from Iran beating up on Tour de Taiwan

Mehdi Sohrabi (Tabriz Petrochemical Team) outkicked breakaway companion David McCann (Giant Kenda) on the uphill finish to win stage 2. Photo: © Tour de Taiwan

It's the kind of headline which has the ability to make some people roll their eyes, flare their nostrils, maybe even spit on the ground in disgust. You might not want to hear it, but I have a high opinion of Iranian pros, most notably on the Tabriz Petrochemical Team. For many years, guys like Mehdi SOHRABI, Ghader Mizbani and Hossein Askari have been earning results which would turn heads, if only their names were Johnny, or Matthew or Thomas.. I salute these guys for their consistent good results. Bravo. Their team is currently ranked 1st place at the Tour of Taiwan after Stage 5, which is no surprise after their team took the win on Stages 2 and 3.
There is more to pro road cycling than "Avrupa". (that's Turkish for "Europe") Asia is rapidly evolving into a pro racing Mecca, with very well attended national tours in almost every country, even in Turkey.. which brings me to a sore spot.. Turkey has very few "pros" attending these far eastern venues. It's a shame that in Turkey, most people look upon adults who ride bicycles, as imbeciles. Mountain biking is growing like wildfire, but road racing is pretty limited, with maybe 15 or so Federation-sanctioned venues throughout the season. We have that many races in one weekend in the Northeast US alone. Thanks for reading.Floris Goesinnen (Drapac) solos to victory in stage four. Photo: © Tour de Taiwan

Sister-wife has landed

I can't decide whether to name her Nickie or Margene. Maybe I'll just go with Chloe. Ebru will always be my Barb though..
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Hills in Florida..

.are mostly bridges, like this one spanning the Intercoastal Waterway. I want to get down there again to work on my tan lines, but this time I want to have my new road bike with me! This Fuji order is getting a little long in the tooth, and I'm tired of riding 'ol Bessie- my 22 pound Fuji cross bike- on the road. This SST 1.0 will hopefully be worth the wait!
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Long day No 2 ouch

Untitled by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
The Garmin data is available via the above link. Almost 75 miles. I originally went out intending to go south to Charlestown (just like I wanted to do yesterday), but the winds shifted and picked up speed so I had to go N-NW into the wind to ensure that I didn't fall apart fighting a headwind for 2 hours trying to get home. As it is, I barely made it into the driveway before dark. Way more climbing than I wanted to do, but I took it pretty easy compared to yesterday- hardly ever went over 300 watts- and only on the steep hills where it really can't be avoided. So tomorrow on my birthday I can relax, maybe hit the gym for an hour, maybe take a swim,or go to the bike path with my boy.. but no bike training. My legs are torched after these two key workouts yesterday and today. I've been using Amino Vital BCAAs in pill form and as a drink mix- very happy with the way it is helping me to recover more quickly and do two hard rides like this without ever cramping.
Thanks for reading.

T-minus 2 minutes

..and I'm officially 40 years old.

Longer ride today

Untitled by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
I'm really liking the Garmin Connect site and all the information you are able to share with friends, so easily. The elevation, course profile, the mapping.. I'm very pleased with it.
Today I resolved to do a challenging ride, but not until about 20 minutes into it. Originally I was going to keep on flatter roads down south towards Charlestown and back, but I decided that I had the legs for a harder effort so I kept local and hit some of the hills in my area. The map tells it all! This is a nice 64 mile route which I am expecting to repeat in the future, hopefully with friends. It's hard to do these longer rides by yourself all the time. I wore a composite kit today- bottom was ArcenCiel (I sponsor them) and the top was the old Millwork One jersey. I went with a merino wool base layer of course and a vest over my long sleeve jersey. This weather is deceiving and can easily make you sick- better to slightly over-dress and ventilate when it gets hot. My toes were a bit chilled by the end of the ride- I wore lycra shoe covers- but mainly for protecting my nice new white DMT from dirt. lycra doesn't insulate too well. Saw some people out on the roads which is rare in RI, especially when you're "casually employed" as I am and go out riding around noon.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy the data.

Fire

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Tuesday's short ride

Untitled by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
So as promised here's the data from yesterday's ride. Colder outside than it looked before Ileft- I had thoughts of pulling a u-turn and going home during the first 5 minutes, but I warmed up quickly. This is a route which I often do when time is short. 32 miles that keep me relatively close to home and offer a lot of opportunities to take a longer route if the mood strikes. Lots of nasty pavement to deal with, especially along Frenchtown Road after crossing route 2. The cruising portion of the ride begins right after getting onto Division Street towards Route 3. My suspicion was confirmed relative to zeroes on the power meter. Apparently the Garmin display shows an average which excludes zeroes/coasting, but that doesn't mean it's not recording them. It's only when you upload to Training Peaks WKO v3.0 that the zeroes are put into play. For example, the Garmin display indicates that this ride averaged 221 watts, but WKO says that it was really only 207. Not a problem for me really, just good to know. I heard that there can be issues with the Garmins relative to calculating Normalized Power, but I don't see any problems. I did a workout on Monday night which included a 20 minute block of VOmax intervals 1 minute on, 1 minute off, and the avg watts were 242 and the normalized avg was 275. This agrees with previous editions of this same workout, which is one of my favorites. Its kind of like a criterium where you're attacking or chasing for one minute every lap, sitting in for minute in between efforts. Thanks for reading.

Garmin 500 thoughts

I've been using the Garmin 500 with a Powertap Pro wheel for the past four days and so far I'm pleased. I just completed a 100 minute ride and the data on the screen is encouraging, but I'm suspicious that it's not recording zeroes into the average watts. When I'm coasting downhill, which is rare, the average watts stays put instead of decreasing. More later when I add a link to my workout.
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