"I am so broke"..

Leaving for a two week trip to Turkey on Friday means a few things: 1. All my bills must be paid before I leave and during my absence. I have a 1" thick stack of envelopes I'm mailing tomorrow. 2. Plane tickets for the three of us are mucho dinero.. let's just say you can buy a very fine road bike with the plane ticket dough.. 3. I will be working 16 hour days all week to make sure that none of my projects suffer a meltdown while I'm gone. Stress is off the charts this week, needless to say. I'm glad it's a "rest week".. Gotta rest up for my vacation. Which in reality, is more of a visit to my father than anything else. His cancer is progressing, he's just managing pain right now and we need to see him soon if you know what I mean. I don't know what's going to feel better or worse, this work week from hell leading up to the trip, or the sadness and emotion of the actual trip itself. I return on June 9th as wife and son stay behind to be close to my father and keep me informed of his condition. Murat will be all alone for five weeks, meaning that he can ride and race as much as he cares to every day and every weekend. Not a bad thing. Today I was up at Wells and had a great time. Our man Adam Sternfield made it into the 8 man break which rolled off after the 1/2 way prime (same as last week!) and finished a solid 6th place. Dear wife actually filmed the finishing sprint and we see that the field was bearing down on these guys pretty hard- they were not that far up the road. (I will try to post it to Google later on) I think I was 10th in the field sprint. Whatever- I was really just having fun today bridging across 10 second gaps and doing a good job of accelerating when it was required.. Legs were not fresh at all but I had no difficulties with todays 26.7 mph pace. Funny- today's race watts averaged lower than yesterday's 3 hours of tempo watts. But of course today's Normalized Power was up there at 277, right at my functional threshold.

"I am so fast"..

..is the theme/category of this post. Why not? It can only be good for morale to give ourselves some occasional attaboys.. I didn't race today up at Sunapee, no, but our Millwork One team had a few guys up there and so far I'm informed that we took the 35+ field sprint for 5th, convincingly. New Hampshire is not only too far away for my taste, it' probably hilly and therefore doesn't suit my lack of climbing talent/ability or my nutritional reserves.. Never done Sunapee, and may never do it, and that's fine and dandy. One thing I definitely like, even though I passed on it, is the entry fee- a reasonable $25.. as it should be. Promoters take note... or don't. My opinions on these matters are not worth paying any mind to. But I also think that being a "friend of promoters" should not be contingent upon being tight lipped about high entry fees. Look at it this way: I manage a team and it's finances. Sponsors paid us a lot of money in order to cover all of our entry fees. I need to both make the money last AND give sponsors the best value for their money. Crits are more compatible with these objectives than road races. Simple.
Back to my original purpose: I rock.
I've been doing this 56 mile loop of rolling hills almost every weekend.. and seeing my elapsed time getting faster and faster. Today marked the latest episode of this [as yet un-named] epic saga. There's more to this evolution than meets the eye. It's not the 20mph average speed of my three hours overall in the saddle or the 2:49:25 time for the 56.6 miles which turns my crank- it's the fact that in all of 2007, I never did a 3 hour ride of more than 188 average watts- and that peak ride was in mid-July when I was going good, not in mid May on the penultimate day of a very highly stressful build period. Today's three hour ride averaged 220 watts. This data, by itself, is meaningless.. but within the context of my own evolution last season and this spring, it speaks for itself and says a lot! I realize that this is partly a case of "putting my mind to it".. after all- who cares [besides me] about the power, speed and duration of a three hour tempo ride? ... Cut me some slack.. I have issues.. and I'm sorely in need of a victory.. even if it's only me who I'm racing against. I defeated my previous PB by another 5 minutes. Hurray for me. Thanks for reading.

Sterling Race Report and Bonus: Wells Ave Report

Many thanks to our self-depracating-sprinter, Adam Sternfield. He owes himself more credit- he initiated and stayed in the ten man break at Wells and duked it out for a solid 5th.
Here's his story from the Pro-1-2 field at the Sterling RR (Full Results are here) :
Thought I'd write a brief race report on Sterling- though for the record I don't necessarily consider what I did "racing". Explanation: due to weather and car rental concerns I had to do the P/1/2 race, and I wasn't sure I had the endurance for 10 times up that hill (80 miles). As such, my mindset was one of training/survival, and the only placing I was concerned with was making sure I placed some water in my ice cube trays so I'd be able to chill my Scotch when I got home. Generally not the attitude I like to bring to a race but I had to be realistic in my ambitions and on the other hand, for training purposes, you really can't beat being bludgeoned for 3 hours by the likes of Mark McCormack. Certainly better for my fitness level than spending the entire day home with a bottle of Scotch...
On to the race itself. The pace of the first 5 laps was so infernal that one rider's post-race comment sums it up nicely: "When we came up the hill and I saw the lap cards say there were still 5 to go, I prayed for a sniper's bullet to take me out and end my suffering". OK, so the rider that made that comment was me, but I'm sure there were others who felt the same. In fact, it was right at about that halfway point that the merely tired started to seperate themselves from the truly spent. Dribs and drabs of 3 to 4 riders rolled off the front and by lap 7 there were 16 guys (including Mark, of course) up the road. That pretty much exhausts my first hand knowledge of the race for the podium. I was told that on one of the later trips up the hill, Mark detonated the group, attacking and taking 2 guys with him, whom he dusted easily in the sprint. We back in the field were content to roll steadily to our goal with a minimum of fratricide. In the end, it turned out I did have the legs to withstand the bludgeoning and was even able to unleash my World-Famous "Eephus" sprint up the hill, carrying me to 13th place in our 17-man drag race. Another surprise, because normally I'm a lock to finish dead last in any sprint.....
and here's the Wells Ave recap:
I think we did fairly well at Wells. Kyle, Matt, and I lined up with 40-50 of our close friends. After the halfway prime I was able to roll away with Marvin Wang and we were soon joined by 5 more. Sam Morse bridged up with a teammate and when the dust settled we had roughly 10 guys and were gone. Kyle and Matt patrolled/thwarted at the front of the field. I worked as much and as hard as possible (training, after all) with little regard for the final. As I mentioned, I am by no means a sprinter :-) EXCEPT if it's a looooong, momentum-driven, tailwind-assisted sprint- which just happened to be the case. I actually led it out from just past the final corner and though an IF guy and a CCB guy came past me pretty convincingly, I thought I was gonna hold on for 3rd. Unfortunately Marvin and Sam's teammate just snuck by me at the line. We were all within a half-wheel of each other, but I believe I was 5th. So, not too bad....
Thanks Adam! A solid weekend for you.

More Hill Repeats

What a day. Stress and pressure could not possibly be worse, but I saved a little reserve of strength to use at the end of the day for myself.. Sure I didn't get out on the road until 6:00 but with the limited daylight I did a series of quality intervals that make the last session of hill repeats look like junk miles. Could have done 1 more but it was getting dark.. family was waiting for me at home. Instructions were clear:
10:00 WU
30:00 endurance
3:00 hill repeats (Vomax for 2.5 min with AC for last 30 sec)
8:00 RI
repeat until you cannot match within 10% of 3rd interval
In case it interests you (and it probably doesn't but that's fine and dandy), I use a hill on route 12 in Scituate. It's exactly one mile long and the first 1/2 mile is 7% grade before it eases to about 3-4% at the top. You do not absolutely need a power meter to do this workout, because you are basically going as hard as you can without popping for the first 2-1/2 minutes, then you're going full throttle for the final 30 seconds. Personally, I like seeing the erosion of watts on the power meter display as this workout progresses and fatigue builds. Notice the instructions: "repeat until you cannot match within 10% of 3rd interval". Some may argue that this is a trivial matter- judging when you have done enough work.. Well.. I'm a lazy idiot with a pressure cooker job and after 10 hours at my job I don't want to risk making poor choices on the bike. I pay a coach to give me workouts that are tailored to me. Can I get just as fast without a coach, by making my own training program and following it? Sure, maybe, possibly, probably.. I've done it before.. but I'm not interested in reinventing the wheel in the process.. not interested in screwing up and feeling regret. My life is complicated. Having a coach makes the hardest part of training, simple. At least I know that I'm doing the specific training which is already proven to have worked for others before me. Thats the key.
Here's what my first interval looked like:

Going Away

On May 23rd we fly to Turkey for a two week holiday. ("We" means wife, son, bike and I)
I return on June 9th.. meaning that I will be missing three weekends of New England crits.. including Mystic Velo Crit, Hartford Crit, Cyclonauts Crit, etc.. However.. put me down for the Nutmeg Classic on 6/21 and every other Crit which follows it through New Britain on 7/13. I expect to be flying by late June/early July.
Needless to say, with a two week vacation on the horizon, I'm wrapped around all kinds of axles here at work- a mountain of work needs to be accomplished before we head to Logan next Friday afternoon.

It's about time!: Gas prices influence bike sales

High Gas Prices mean more Bike Sales and Repairs
A real forehead slapper! Americans realize that they can use their "nutritional reserves" for fuel instead of gasoline to get from place to place. Thirty years of relatively low gasoline prices in this country has made Americans the most obese and unhealthy people on the planet. Maybe this will spark a reversal.

Milestones

I've looked forward to this post because as of this date I've finally completed a full year of riding and racing with the PowerTap (which I first used on May 12, 2007).
In the past year:
Distance: 7747 miles (12,467 km)
Duration: 443 hours
Since Jan 1st:
Distance: 3093 miles (4977 km)
Duration: 180 hours
It was also a big week for me in terms of time and mileage as well: 256 miles in 14 hours. (This excludes a 6.5 mile ride I did Saturday with my son Reis by my side- he's four)
Today I skipped the Wells Ave crit that I was planning to do, in favor of more family themed activities: a Mother's Day picnic at Goddard Park. We had a good time- grilled lots of steaks with some friends.. I wasn't done grumbling to myself under my breath until we got home.. which is when I promptly suited up and hit the road. Long sleeves were the right choice because it was mid fifties and windy.. So I set out to do my typical 3-hour ride/route- the one I really like. This time, I wore my HRM chest strap and put the Polar on my wrist- Of course I was more interested in the profile of the route than the HR.. Turns out that this 56 mile ride has 2420 feet of climbing... and my average HR was 148. Whatever. I started out slowwww.. (the HR chart below will show this) Legs were quite whipped from yesterday's "rhythm intervals".. which are basically 4:00 VOmax and then 4:00 recovery. Two sets of three with an extra 5:00 of rest in between the sets. Topped off with 30 minutes of tempo. They hurt.. more than the hill repeats I've been doing. They are an extra minute at the same intensity, with only half of the rest in between. So I was saying.. I started out slow today.. resolving to hold an average of high end zone 2 or low end zone 3.. Of course, I'm not guided by my HRM, I'm guided by the average watts reading. About an hour into this ride, I'm still sub-200w on average.. but my the time I hit the mid point, I'm up into the 215 range and suddenly feeling weirdly good.. not really good, just a little better. By the time I end the ride, I'm back down to 213w, but I feel fresh at the end.. like I could do more.. which I've heard is a good time to end a hard ride. The route was unchanged from before (April 5 was the previous date I did this course, when I was boasting about taking 10 minutes off my time from before) As it turns out, I took another 6 minutes off of that time, without really intending to (at least not during the first hour of the ride..) Here's another compilation of data- one showing the route profile and today's heart rate, one comparing today's ride with the last time I did this route, and still another showing you the last few weeks of ride data.. (Notice that the average distance for the past six weeks is a solid 200 miles). This stuff isn't intended as any kind of chest beating on my part.. I'm just interested in monitoring how the data evolves.. But on the other hand I don't think that riding almost 20 mph for three solid hours by myself is anything to sneeze at. I've done an untold number of "fast" group rides that were a lot slower. Whatever. Just looking for the positive in all of this: Very simply, I'm getting faster.. even though the training stress is making me tired and a touch weaker. Here's the data.. Click to enlarge:

Photos of 2008 Blue Hills Classic

Found a nice photo stream on Flickr and to my surprise, there I am!.. and I now realize how badly my helmet clashes with my kit. Yuck.
Check out the rest.

Nailed it.

I dreaded it a little bit.. okay a lot, especially since it was a highly stressful and energy consuming day.. But when I suited up and headed out on route 12, I was a new man. I started the first 20 minute interval at the beginning of some rolling hills and finished it off on Pippin Orchard Road. That will explain the slightly higher VI and slower speed. I held a tiny something in reserve and hit the target. With my current FT considered to be 271, looks like I did the correct amount of work. (Look at normalized power value)
Interval 2, exactly ten minutes later.. I decide I like Pippin Orchard Road a lot- it runs in between route 14 and route 12, it's relatively flat with wide shoulders, and it's about two miles end to end. I want to do the 2nd interval on flat roads, so that there's a lot less variability, like I get on the climbs. It's a more truthful interval I think.. I had to make three quick U-turns, but I sprinted back up to speed, so nothing was lost. As you can see, interval 2 was stronger than interval 1. I'm happy with that. I rest exactly ten minutes.
Interval 3 is only ten minutes, but I expect it to be the hardest. I was wrong. This is the one which I was able to really shine on- the numbers speak for themselves. Mission accomplished. Overall, the entire workout with warm up and rest and cool down went like this:

20:00 FTP 10:00 RI.. Repeat

I'm going to be wasted after tonight's scheduled workout::

20:00 WU

20:00 FTP

10:00 RI

20:00 FTP

10:00 RI

10:00 FTP

20:00 WD

My FTP is now set to 271 in the Peaks software.. but I just checked my 2008 Normalized Power Chart to date and it says my 60 minute Normalized Power is 277 (and that I did it during the Blue Hills Classic). At my present weight of 79 kg, that 3.5 watts per kilo, for whom it may interest.. This chart shows all norm power levels from 5:00 up.

Jiminy Jilikers

I was perusing the list of Pro-Am finishers and discovered two things:
1. That it was a 93 mile road race (wtf? note to self: AVOID J.P.R.R.)
2. That my good friend and coach, 38 year old Todd Scheske took a solid 30th place, in the Pro-Am, it appears.
From the kick-ass report that I read at Adam Jr's blog, it was a pretty epic fight to the finish..
Full results Jiminy Peak Road Race

Blue Hills Classic Race Report

Here's the 'more later' part:
Imagine Murat wringing his hands, looking out the window at the falling rain.. as wife and child sleep peacefully nearby. The struggle to avoid going back to bed was fought quite fiercely for a few minutes.. even while I slept- the snooze bar was struck twice to avoid this inevitable clash of character versus "weenie-ocrity". In the end, I resolved to do what winners do: "everything which losers are unwilling to do". HA.. ha.. Cut it pretty close too, because by the time I reached the parking lot and stood in the registration area, again wringing my hands, someone announced that I had five minutes to make up my mind- it was 35 minutes until the start. "Rain".. "Cold".. "Crashes".. "Forty dollars".. "You hate road races".. "Why are you here?".. are swirling through my mind as the rain pours, now harder than ever. Then.. who rolls into the pavillion? None other than team mates Ralf and Kyle- who have ridden from home in this mess. Well, that cinches it for me right there..

A half hour later I'm staging with the other victims of this unfortunate weather.. No warm-up, no stretching, and the race is ON right from the start. Immediately two are separated and up the road. Within a couple of miles, I move up and try to stay near the front. Next thing you know I'm rolling through the front, past a bunch of BikeBarn guys who were trying to keep the field tame and dormant. I could see the two up the road are within my striking range, meaning they have about 10 or 15 seconds on us at most. I accelerate smoothly, on the hoods and one minute later I discreetly find their wheel just before the second corner (turning off of 138) Now we are three and I settle into their rythym without skipping a beat. Not 30 seconds later, Mr O'Connor joins us and we are four. Four teams represented and a big BikeBarn team back there doing a good job of blocking, we were sure.. Fine and dandy. I'm doing my share, pulling through, but not really drilling it. Our team would rather have Matt K up the road than me.. and I'm there more to disrupt things than to contribute.. In the mean time I'm hoping that some pressure's off Matt for a short while and he's just cruising and letting others tire themselves out with chasing.. Nevertheless.. I know there's some vertical rise coming up and I don't want to blow up. Well, no amount of holding back was going to get me up and over the start/finish line with these guys. I tried.. I turned myself inside out but lost contact about 200m before the line. What seemed like 10-15 seconds later, the first chase group whizzes past me, Matt yells something supportive as he passes, and another chase group five seconds behind the first almost leaves me in the dust, but I manage to latch on and recover for the next 4-5 miles of lap 2.. felt pretty solid too by the time we reached the climb again. Kept myself at the front 2-3 guys for the first 1/4-1/2 mile of the climb- big ring- standing a lot- using my heft to my advantage as much as possible.. but to no avail. Again I'm shelled (with a few others) very near the top/finish line. Now it's a solo TT to limit the damage. I have a target up the road- a lone BikeBarn guy. So I keep it steady and we're together by the time we hit the climb again. Not wanting to be caught by the 45s, we do a good job of pacing ourselves up and over the climb, such that the 45s don't reach us until after we turn onto 138 for the last time. Then we're absorbed and decide we may as well ride this train to the finish. Careful to keep out of the way, there are about 4 or 5 of us 35s in the 45+ group. Last time up the climb, a lapse of paying attention let the BikeBarn fella up the road a piece. Oh well.. Whatever. I dig for the last 300 meters and get to within 3 seconds of him. I have no idea if I'm gunning for 20th place or 30th.. (36 started I think) As it turns out I finish 18th.. with Steve B and team mate Ralf right on my heels. Felt good to finish! I think I'm doing a better job this year of "finish what you start". It's ever so much more satisfying than quitting.

The thing I'm happy about is a couple of new Critical Power values- CP20 and CP60. Before today, my mbest CP20 was 265 (last September) Today I hit 275. Also last September, my best CP60 was 235, but today: 253! This means that my fitness/form as of this spring date is better than my peak summer form of 2007. Sounds kooky, I know- after all I'm getting dropped on easy climbs in road races.. but bear in mind that in 2007 I did my best racing in criteriums.. per usual.. I'm not a road racer- I do them only when there are no crits I can do. Coach and I are going to be winding me up pretty tight over the next few weeks.. I expect to feel tired and fatigued all through May. Come mid-June we'll be letting the spring really unwind and I should be flying in time for Nutmeg, Keith Berger, Crit Nationals, New Britain, Attleboro. Good things are coming my way..

I should take my own advice! Stick to crits Murat.. but these road races are essential in terms of TTFU. Oh well. I felt good today, believe it or not.. don't let the 18th place finish fool you. The numbers churned out by the Powertap tell a much more positive story, numbers worth celebrating about actually. More later..
Preliminary Millwork One Racing 35+ results:
4 Matt Kressy
18 Murat Altinbasak
20 Ralf Geiben Lynn
22 Kyle Gates

Stick to what you know!

That's my mantra- ESPECIALLY in matters of dining out. If you have found a restaurant which serves you quality food at a reasonable cost with good service- why go anywhere else? Why go to a place you haven't been to in two years? A disapointing $60-80 meal really stings.. It's like losing your last hand at the blackjack table. Nothing left to do but go home and think about the money you've wasted..

To protect the innocent I will refer to the restaurant we went to last night as "OG". Dear wife had a birthday and after getting home from my two hour hammer-fest we all jumped in the car and headed out. Control freak that I am, it was difficult to leave the dining decision to my wife, but after all, it was HER birthday. When she suggested the "OG" I said "Why not". We'd been there before and couldn't recall a bad experience there.. WHAT A MISTAKE.

Our server was an 18 year old with a short attention span. She never offered us water (which we would be needing in copious amounts, later on) The appetizer of chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks and Calamari was AWFUL, and not worth 1/2 of the $9.95 we paid for it. My beer cost $4.75, her Diet coke cost $2.75.. Ugh. I chose a dish called "Mixed Grille", which left me saying "where's the beef".. Three hunks of chicken and three little pieces of red meat (cut? who the heck knows) I was asked with a straight face while ordering- how I want the meat cooked.. What a joke. They were all well done anyway. The worst part- everything from the bread to the salad to the appetizer to my six pieces of animal muscles to the mashed potatoes and "grilled" veggies.. were so SALTED that I was dying of thirst 1/4 of the way through my "meal". My wife had the same issues and left her food 1/2 eaten. Our son Reis- ate nothing. What a disappointment. Given the chance to eat this food for free, I would probably pass. Last night, I was required to bay nearly $60 for this mess. Never again..

Places we like: Haruki Japanese in Cranston or Providence! I eat lunch there twice a week (not cheap) but the food is fresh, clean, unsalted and always satisfying in a way that doesn't put you in a coma. Brain food. We've never left there unhappy. Bertucci's: We love their pizza! Some of their other Italian dishes aren't bad either, but at least they're not bullshit concoctions like at the "OG". Bertucci's keeps it simple. Love the bread they give away too. East Side Pockets on Thayer: The owners know us, they always give us extras and freebies when we go there, they even speak to us in Turkish out of simple courtesy (they're Syrian). The food is cheap and satisfying, made quick and tasty. This is why whenever we have out of town guests, we take them there at least once for teh "Thayer Street experience".

I know that dining out is taboo for many.. But if you must as we do.. stick to what you know. We all work way too hard for our money to take dumb and expensive chances on lousy food.

Hill repeats..

I will be on route 12 in Scituate shortly, burying myself as I repeatedly go up a certain one mile climb and coast down the other side. Bury, rest, repeat. 2-1/2 minutes at zone 5a, plus 30 seconds at zone 5b..
According to an old friend and mentor:
"Races are won by those who are most willing to suffer".

With a vengeance..

..is how I skipped today's ride. Ugh I don't even want to see the bike for a few days. I say that now but.. hill repeats await me tomorrow afternoon.
I have some new friends!: the infamous "third testicle" is paying a visit, and he's camped not far from the base of Mount EverAssed- a now dormant but very painful volcano on my crotch.. Man alive that hurts!- especially in the first 10-20 minutes of a ride.. I'm tempted to puncture it and maybe get some relief by spilling whatever the hell is inside.. The left calf has a knot in it which feels like a knife is being twisted in there.. It's always something. On the bright side, my knees are now rock solid and pain free..

It's glandular..

I am still in the 173-ish range (surprised?) depending on time of day.. and I hereby resolve to drop at least 4 kilos in time for the Hartford Crit on the 25th of May.. Don't want to look like pear shaped fat-ass when I don my brand new Millwork One skinsuit, do I?? Well.. that and I don't want to suffer so badly when I'm trying to climb. To help me lose the weight, I'm keeping a ten pound dumb-bell on the kitchen counter- a contant reminder of exactly what ten pounds means. These road races have me a little bit down in the dumps. Okay so I fell apart on the climb at Sturbridge.. not on the rollers or flats.. no need to beat myself up about it.. but it was more mental than anything else. I have this bad habit of withdrawing myself from a race long before the body has reached it's limits. If I anticipate severe difficulty (inexperience at road races pre-disposes me to expect the worst), even miles before reaching a climb, a switch has already been flipped in my mind, and it's telling me it's not worth killing myself in a race where I have no chance of placing. I'd rather lick my wounds, do some more proper training and rest and try again later, than slug it out in the red zone for 1-2 hours, hanging on by a thread and holding down/tasting my vomit. I don't race well unless my head is into it. My head doesn't get into it unless I visualize myself in the top ten. If I don't visualize myself in the top ten, I have a hard time justifying the suffering. It stops being fun. There needs to be hope. Is this such a bad habit? I'm not so sure. In my profession, I have this knack for sniffing out and avoiding un-necessary work. It keeps me ahead of the curve. At Sturbridge I could have done a better job of grabbing a wheel and sticking to it all the way up that first climb.. but by the time that I popped I had no gas left to match anyone else's pace. I was on my own. When I got to the finish at the end of lap one, Sandy asked if I was gonna finish. "Yes I am!" was followed by a lot of "am I really?" echoing in my mind.. Thoughts of a long drive home and getting no training and being $40 poorer kept me churning the pedals to the very end, regardless of how many minutes I was down.. How much of a difference would ten pounds have made? Go lift a full gallon container of milk and you tell me! It's only 8 pounds... I should not expect myself to be an excellent climber or road racer- I never have been!- and I'm not going to magically become excellent at climbing and road racing just because I have a large amount of base miles and hours. So when's the next criterium? I'll drive to New Jersey if I have to!.. As for the GVCC Classic of two weekends ago, I'm over it. Once I took a look at the results, I realized that over 1/2 of the field was DNF.. so I'm not so special after all. Now quit looking at my gut! I had just inhaled.

Yes Sturbridge..

Latest Performance Management Chart, showing November 18th thru today..

A great day for a bike race! Today it was less important where I finished, and more important that I just plain finish. Many are telling me that I might be overtrained, over-reached or whatever.. but I think it has more to do with me simply disliking road races. Today I was determined to try and finish with the main field.. so determined in fact that when a team mate flatted, I excused myself from waiting for him and helping him catch back up to the field. I won't forgive myself for that lapse in judgment, but at least I resolved to finish the race, and I did. Not sure how far down I was, but the 45+ field caught and passed me (Yes I hung there with them for a few miles, but I just wasn't inspired enough to turn myself inside out trying to hang onto the back of their main field- I ended up favoring my own pace over theirs..) Not long after that, I joined up with 3 or 4 others and we worked to limit the damage together.. Last time up the climb was such a relief.. though when I was at the base, the 35s who had already finished were already headed back down the hill.. Yeah I almost called it a day- many times- during lap no 2.. but having a few people to trade pulls with on lap 3 made the decision to finish the race, much easier. I know I came in close to DFL, but not quite. When's the next effing criterium please?

Below, my charts of recent weeks and all months beginning with May 2007- when I first put the Powertap into service.. May 12th to be exact. Could I be over trained? I have 7315 miles since last May 12. I have 3357 miles since November 18 (the day I started training again for 2008), and I have 2662 miles since January 1st.

Millwork One Racing's Matt Kressy made us proud again today with a top ten finish in today's stacked 35+ road race!

Time to just "Let go"

I really need to stop fretting about road races, about getting dropped, about being over-trained, about being a poor climber.. and just do as Tyler Durden says: Let the chips fall where they may.. Wish me luck.

Looking back upon the past couple of seasons.. I find that the only road races I completed are two Bob Beal Road Races and one Topsfield Circuit Race where I surprisingly scored a decent finish in a large Pro-Am field. And to think! I had no power mater back in 2006. I just had good form on a good day, mixed with a lot of determination and a little bit of luck.

Sturbridge?

As much as I want to race and have a grand old time.. I have to remind myself that I am not known for being an excellent road racer. I actually do a poor job of being pack fodder lately! I raced in Rochester Sunday, GVCC Classic Pro-1-2-3.. When I felt highly uncomfortable during te neutral opening miles, I knew I was in for a joyless day. Racing commenced on a right hand turn and everyone took off with guns blazing.. that is, all 25 of us. I later discover that that very first acceleration took me to 1120 watts.. WTF are we doing over 1000 watts in the opening kilometer of a 70 mile road race?? Give me a break! Twenty or so minutes later, I was riding all by myself.. hating road races, swearing to stick only to crits and getting a nice sunburn in the process.. From there, I met up with my kid brother- told him to drive himself home and that I was gonna salvage my day with a good 3 hour ride. What a death march! I could barely hold zone 1-2 and I was feeling very much like I had just started in this sport- weak and untrained.
Monday I did a one hour recovery ride- still in Rochester- and covered a lot of the old roads I trained on as a junior back in the late eighties. It is absolutely astonishing how much farmland has been transformed into suburban communities of 2500 square foot homes! Disgusting. Food prices got you down? Eat your house!
Tuesday we were back in town (drove back Monday night) so I rode to work easy, rode home easy- still feeling like 1/2 a man.. (skipped the hill repeats I was supposed to do!) Wednesday I repeated the same- 12.5 mile easy ride to work, repeat on the ride home. Legs still feel like mush and tank feeling empty.. Today I ride to work and start feeling a touch better.. strength coming back.. hey I think I can do my scheduled intervals tonight! And so I did. Nailed every single one of them without a single watt of slippage in the numbers, all the way to the end. Hard CP6 intervals in zone 5b.. each of the three sets topped off with a 30 second CP1 effort.
Sturbridge (?) Do I dare? Here's the thing.. I'll hate myself more if I don't bother to try, than if I try and fail. Besides, four of my newest team mates are going to be there.. and one of them needs apparel from me. I think it's a no-brainer.. but in the back of my mind I'll be having recurring thoughts of sprinting at 1100 watts in the GVCC Classic just to keep up with the field! That really sucked balls. An off day in a small and stacked Pro-Am field. Recipe for disaster.. Saturday- having team mates will help. I'll grab the wheel of Ralf or Adam or Kyle and just fixate on it I guess. Maybe form will be there for a change! Maybe letting the spring unwind a little bit these past few days will do the trick. Thanks for reading.

Tour of Turkey: Have you ever seen such a prize list?

Remember that a Euro is worth more than a US dollar!
This total purse is worth 160,000 Euros- about $200,000 I think.
http://www.tourofturkey.org/awards.aspx

Rick Newhouse Criterium

I'm dead tired after a seven hour drive back from Rochester, so I may cut this short..
Saturday I raced the 35+ at Ninigret and was having a pretty good day.. until I discovered that the weird bouncy feeling in the rear tire which began 1/2 way through the race, was in fact a slow leak.. I must have looked pretty silly looking down at my tire after every corner. The same thing happened at Attleboro last year, and it turned out to NOT be a flat- just some slippiness in the corners.. so I shrugged it off as the same issue- after all these were brand spankin new Conti 4000S tires! With two laps to go I finally saw the tire for what it really was- 40 psi of soft mushy rubber. With my team mate Adam Sternfield up the road with Team Benidorm rider Wade, I was hoping I could just coast across the line and to hell with sprinting for 7th.. but then when they were overtaken with 1/2 lap left to go, I resolved to finish this thing without disgracing myself. So when a right handed surge erupted in the final bend, I followed it as best I could, put my head down and sprinted in the saddle- to take 6th in the field sprint (10th overall, 4 escaped early) A disappointment that they changed the prize list to 8 deep instead of 10.. Oh well! Such is bike racing..

Week of unrest (?)

Three hour ride after work today- rode home in the moonlight.. Who does three hour rides during a "rest week"?
Did 57 miles in 3:09:20.. same exact route as I did a couple Saturdays ago.
Was supposed to be a zone 2 leg opener, and it was.. Only 180w averaged.. but how on earth did I take a minute off of a previous time which required 211 watts? Was it the excess apparel? Extra bottle? Wind? Extra food I was carrying? Colder temp? Shoe covers? I don't know! but today's 30 watt drop SHOULD have given a time that was SLOWER, not faster. Maybe I just need to zero the torque or something.. Regardless- I took it real easy tonight- no mistake about that! In the small ring for most of the ride! Got out of the saddle for every little rise.. Never put myself in difficulty.. Maybe it's the new Continental 4000S tires I mounted last week? Seriously, this is weird. I guess training in nice weather requires less power.. Either that or my PT is an unreliable POS.

Tour of Turkey: Pettachi Wins Stage 2!

Money can't buy you love! The Tour of Turkey evolved in the span of one year, from having a 15,000 Euro purse to having a 150,000 Euro purse.. attracting all kinds of ProTour guns to the start of the opening criterium in Istanbul on Sunday. To wit, Mr Pettachi himself won yesterday's stage.. Too bad that Velo News couldn't be bothered to even register a blip on their radar. Really a sad shame. It kind of reinforces my belief that to many, it's not bike racing unless it is a WASP doing the pedaling/promoting. Forgive my cynicism, but it is apathy such as this which prevents the development of bike racing programs in the Middle East from taking root and growing. Such a waste that 150,000 Euros will be handed over to riders from Europe while the Turkish National Team suffers from a lack of equipment, bikes, apparel, HRMs and all of the other things we take for granted.

Please visit the official site of the International Presidency Tour of Turkey: http://www.tourofturkey.org/

In all of the years I've been following it, this is the classiest and most professional production ever seen. There are photos, results, course maps, profiles, the works.. No offense folks, but it's a heck of a lot more interesting that the number of people who signed up for the 'epic' Battenkill road race!

So much to report..

..but I must be brief. I tried to race the Chris Hinds Pro-1-2-3 on Saturday, and for whatever reason I completely and suddenly fell apart in the 30th minute. Fine and dandy. I knew I wouldn't be in race form anyway.. Save it for the 35+ later on.. Well the 35+ was called after Lap No 1 due to lightning.. We had to wait 10 minutes to restart, where it was announced that we would be racing another 35 minutes, barring any more lightning.. Then it began to rain really hard.. I toughed it out to the end, and chewed through the handlebars to try to get a top ten finish.. but fell short by a couple of places. 12th. Oh well- no regrets and no reason to fret.. I am flush with TSS from the past 4 weeks and due for serious rest this next week.
Ventured north to Wells Ave this morning and found the fields combined with 5 minutes before start! I've never pinned a number on so fast. Warm up? Pfffft. I was one the bike in no time, hammering like crazy from the get-go. Well, with an unadvantageous start, I missed the three man break which went from the gun and were never caught (this is a recurring theme at Wells lately..) So it was a race of riding around the blockers and trying to gain time on the escapees.. Who were they? I don't know but I salute their resolve, strength and success. You'll see them top three in the Wells results soon. As for me, I took a $5 prime (2nd in the two place prime actually) and then with a couple of laps to go, my new team mates did a fantastic job of setting the table for me to take the field sprint. 4th at Wells Ave for me.. very cool. Ralf and Kyle know what to do.. and they do it very well. I'm honored that they put faith in me and I'm happy that I didn't let them down. I'll be looking for chances to repay the favor. Thanks for reading. More later, maybe.

Performance Management Chart

Here it is: The Holy Grail of Peaks WKO+ Software.

The pink line indicates ATL- Acute Training Load. This is the rolling average of TSS for the past 7 days. (default is 7 days- can be changed to a different duration)

The blue line is the CTL- Chronic Training Load. This is the rolling average of TSS for the past 42 days. (again- default setting is 42 days- can be user controlled too)

The golden bars represent TSB- Training Stress Balance. It is also referred to as "form". When ATL and CTL are down and criss crossing each other on the chart, notice that form goes up. When the golden bars are at their peak, those are good days to be competing in important races. From the look of my chart, I will pretty much serve as pack fodder at Chris Hinds this weekend.. or maybe I'll be a force to be dealt with- I'm unpredictable.. and I'm feeling fatigued right now and in theory I won't be ripping anyone's legs off until I have a solid week of restful active recovery behind me.. which won't be until the weekend of 4/19..

FYI, this chart is dated from the time I started training for 2008- November 18th 2007. Since that first day, I've done 2858 miles in 172 hours, and the Powertap odometer reads 6500 miles since I first used it on May 12th of 2007. That toal doesn't include any of the fixed gear or off roading I did earlier in the winter. Thanks for reading.

Thursday's program, Tuesday's feedback

**********************************
20:00 WU
15 x 30 seconds at CP6 with 30-second spin recoveries. Stop if power drops below CP6 zone. Rolling starts, standing, big gear. Get to top end quickly.
15 min tempo
10 min spin
**********************************
Sounds simple enough! I love workouts with sub 3:00 minute intervals. 30 seconds? Piece of cake. My normalized FTP of last season was established to be 304 watts by doing a very similar one hour workout.
Here's Tuesday's planned workout, followed by some back and forth with Coach Scheske..
***********************************
20:00 WU
Do 4 minutes at CP10 (Z5a), with 4 minutes RI x2
3 sets.
5:00 between each set.
15:00 Spin recovery/endurance
************************************

Well they are YOUR numbers so it is as hard as YOU go! These workouts are hard no doubt about it.

Yeah weekend looks crap for weather.

---

From: Murat Altinbasak
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 8:55 AM
To: Todd Scheske
Subject: RE: CP10? Charts Mon Tues

I tought it was a pretty hard workout! 329 is my present CP5- doing it six times in succession and I would have been curled up in the gutter- fetal position- before the end.

I am stronger- I tell myself every day.

The right knee is better too btw.

I'm racing twice Saturday- Pro-Am and 35+. It's looks like it might be cold, wet and miserable- small fields.

Todd Scheske wrote:

below

---

From: Murat Altinbasak
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 11:21 PM
To: Todd Scheske
Subject: RE: CP10? Charts Mon Tues

Todd,

I checked when I got home and CP10 at NP would be 329 watts! I'm glad I didn't know this because I would have surely ridden to failure somewhere during the 2nd interval.

[Scheske] yeah, and that would just mean that you are training hard and getting better…. Going easy is nicer and secures a place at the back of pack or back at the car and home early on a Sunday. ;)

I figured zone 5a would be about 300 watts, so that's what I aimed for, on all six intervals, missing the mark by a little bit, but pretty close. Had to skip the 5 min RI in between sets 2 and 3- I was running out of daylight. You'll find that intervals 5 and 6 were solid though.

[Scheske] don't worry about the number of intervals – do them on target and make them GOOD ones. I'd rather see 4 good intervals than 3 "so-so" ones and 3 lousy ones. (I did not look at the file yet)

I didn't feel 100% tonight. Long days at work with travel up to Boston are wearing me down.

[Scheske] work can be a detractor!

Am I going to have good legs this Saturday at Chris Hinds? I got 20th last year and want to be top five.. Looks like I'm pushing hard on Thursday again, and I already feel tired..

[Scheske] Saturday is not a priority race for you from what I remember, so I don't expect to see you on top form. We are working to build up right now. I'm not saying you won't be top 5 though since you are ahead of fitness from last year – but then again the race depends on who is there!

Monday's chart was copied from Tuesday's ride home, btw. I had forgotten my PT when I went to work with all my gear.

ttyl

Comparing Apples to Apples

One week ago, I did a solo ride which covered 57 miles in 3:10:40. Yesterday (Saturday 4/5/08), I set out to repeat this same route- one which criss crosses itself many times and keeps me reasonably close to home- one with relentless climbing and rolling hills. I really love this ride because it zig zags across West Warwick, Coventry, Scituate and Craston.. and it's just plain challenging. One day I'll ride it with my Polar S710i and show you the profile.. Okay long story short- I did the ride today in 2:59:55 and averaged 19 miles an hour. That is not all. The really interesting thing about today's ride is that the PowerTap gives an average watt reading of 210 watts today- last week it was 211! How is this possible? How can a ride which is almost 11 minutes faster have average power that is lower? Well for one, the Powertap is known to have a margin of error that is up to 5%.. which is why there's no reason to celebrate when we up our FTP by a few watts. At any rate, the key is in the normalized power! Yes, today's normalized power was about 5 watts higher than last week. What does this mean exactly? I think it means that when I was climbing, I dug deeper and produced more watts- which is easily proven by the 11 minutes I saved completing today's ride. But, for the average watts to be a touch lower, it also means that I required more recovery in between climbs. In the end, today's ride as fully one mile an hour faster than last Saturday- 19 mph. All things considered, I'm happy to see that I had it in me to do that. When I first started out, I did not feel very strong.. but heck if I was any good at training and racing 'by feel' I wouldn't have any need for a power meter, would I?
Now for some very cool charts:

Above is last Saturday, below is yesterday- one week apart, same exact ride. As I suspected, the low end and the top end power ranges (zone 1 active recovery, and zone 5b anaerobic capacity) are both a lot higher in the second ride, the one which was completed in 11 fewer minutes. To wit, the zone 1 changed from 37 minutes to 48 minutes, and the zone 5b changed from 13 minutes to 18 minutes.. Which goes to show you that for every extra 1 minute I spent in zone 5b, I needed an extra 2 minutes in zone 1.

Another chart:

This one is called the Mean Maximal Power Curve. It plots a multitude of durations against the corresponding maximum number of watts I did. Here, I've plotted both last Saturday's ride (in yellow) and yesterday's ride (dashed). It's hard to tell by looking so let me give you the wattage differences (last week vs this week) for CP1 (340:381), CP2 (307:324), CP5 (280:272), CP10 (255:246), CP20 (237:234), CP30 (same) and CP60 (same). Here again, we can see that I drilled it harder on the climbs- none of which were over a mile- most were 1/4 to 1/2 mile rollers. Here's what I get out of this (and it really comes as no surprise): I perform better when there is a lot of variability. I can wind it up into zone 5 -repeatedly- and recover from it quickly. which also explains why I suffer and perform poorly in situations where a steady zone 4 grind is required. I do a lousy job of "time trialing" and a lousy job of being in a break, especially on a flat course. I'm working on this weakness, of course, and that means I need to get into as many breaks as possible. I need to tough it out to the end just once and break the spell.

Another interesting nugget: Last week's CP60 occured between 90 and 150 minutes. Yesterday, it was minute 1 thru 60 of my ride. Both averaged 226 watts, but normalized watts (243:252) and cadence (86:90) were higher in the 2nd ride's CP60.

Lastly, overall average cadence of both rides was exactly the same: 87. That's not something I plan, it just happens.

Mean Maximal Power Curve

The above chart graphs two sets of data. On the bottom: duration. On the left: Maximal Power. This represents the best level of sustained power, ever, for the corresponding duration. The reason there are two graphs is because one of them represents my 2007 season (in dashed lines) and the other represents 2008 year to date. The very best data comes from racing of course, and since racing thus far has been limited, there is a large disparity, especially in the durations under 5 minutes. In Peaks software, if I drag the cursor over the graph, it gives the peak watts for that duration, along with the date when it was achieved. I've given an example up there. Pretty slick if you ask me..

HRM [can] = Under-training

The great thing about commuting (and my boss is perfectly aware of this): It makes me jump out of bed earlier (with vigor and vim) and I actually arrive at the office earlier than when I drive in, and more awake too.

The no so great thing (in my boss' eyes) is that I tend to leave the office a little earlier too, on those day that I ride home. It's hard to resist.. I want to leave right now and it's only 4:37..

Gonna make it a nice 90 minute endurance ride. I did miserable FTP intervals of 10 and 20 minutes last night..indoors.. especially hard because we just recently upped my FTP by many many watts. See that's the great thing about training with a power meter! You are required to adjust your intensity periodically. As much as I respect the HRM, you can't do that without a power meter and without Peaks software. If I used a HRM, I'd be at the same "LT" threshhold heart rate all season, even after the legs have adapted and gotten stronger and zones have shifted. For example, back in January, my tempo zone was 175 to 210 watts. Today, it's 205 to 245. Big difference. How hard would I be pushing myself after this much adaptation, if I followed my HRM?  

If you're not careful, using only a HRM can mean you are under-training. Not pushing hard enough, not stressing systems enough (especially after a steep curve of adaptation).. next thing you know, you're performance is flat-lining. Thoughts? Discuss.

Stop

I'm going 1 million miles an hour at work lately and I need to just stop for a moment and remind myself that I'm human.. A few deep breaths.. A pause for reflection.. Lots of FTP work awaits me tonight on the trainer. I can't wait.. Outside would have been swell, but look out there- it's warm but raining sideways! As predicted, I really felt the stress of Saturday's ride at Wells Ave on Sunday. A break of six formed and held a 20-30 second gap on us until the end. I contributed to the chase most every lap but blockers were doing a very good job.. We had them in our sights the whole time! Frustrating that I didn't have it in me to just bridge across solo. Saturday took a lot out of me though.. Found myself third across the line in the field sprint. Great to see team mates Joe B. and Michael S. there by my side. Good times were had by all.

3+ hours.. again

I don't think I've ridden as many 3+ hour rides in the past three years, as I have in these past three months. Weird.. Today was no exception. Yeah it took some willpower to get out there today- the cold temp and wind was not attractive- but the sunny weather made it bearable. I often do a huge 60 mile loop on such days- that is, on the days when I don't quite have my heart into freezing my kahunas off for three hours. When you pick a big route, there's no way weenie out of it. Today I decided to play it close to home, so I guess in the back of my mind, I trusted myself to do exactly what I'm supposed to do: 3-1/2 hours of hilly endurance- riding FT on all the climbs. I did a familiar ride which criss crosses all over the climbs of Coventry and Scituate and ends with a high speed descent into Cranston and back into West Warwick on the bike path.
I did the ride a little differently today: insead of displaying avg watts, I wanted to see current watts- how else will I meter my FT efforts on the climbs? Long story short, without seeing the average watts, I dug a little too deep in between climbing, and ended up with an average power for the 3+ hours, of 212 (normalized about 240). Meaningless to you, I know.. until I tell you that my zone 3 tempo range begins at 204.. so this was no endurance ride. I don't usually pay much attention to average speeds, but today's was a little over 18 mph, so I noticed.. Adaptation! Who's happier than me? Of course the legs are a little bit thrashed, so I'll feel this tomorrow at Wells Ave. Thanks.

He's going the distance.. he's going for speed..

Funny song.. Long week, but it went by fast! Here we are on Friday.. and with rain threatening all week, it's a surprise that I managed to commute to work by bike every singe day (including today!) I am very happy about that. Happiness for me usually involves doing things I don't feel like doing, but which I know I must do.. Discipline. Keeping promises to myself. 

All tricked out in my new bike uniforms, I feel pretty good. The whole team looks great. Looking good is a part of feeling good, no denying that.. or at least that the reverse is true.

Selling kid's bikes! We're going to grow this business if it kills us. Lots of incredible ideas and plans have been developing behind the scenes between dear wife and I. The "blogsite was updated recently, mainly to announce the arrival of new colors of the LikeaBike Jumper- red, white and blue. See for yourself. We sold a few bikes this past week and that's always great. I love it when the Crackberry goes off to announce that someone bought a bike out of our inventory from our Ebay store. Lately, with the dollar so weak, most bikes are being sold to outside of the US.. Fine and dandy. I shipped a bike to Canada yesterday.

Training program has been different this week- primarily because it was all performed outside for a change! I was apprehensive at first, because of the cold and wind, which I hate. Suffering through intervals is bad enough without fighting the cold and wind and traffic.. Plus with my newly rated Functional Threshold Power, I was worried that I was going to blow my wad and ride to failure on Tues and Thurs. Turns out I am a lot stronger than I give myself credit for. On Tuesday I trounced through my three ten minute intervals at FTP (271 with 10 min recovery in between) - actually I held back a few watts on the first two and then nailed it on the third one. Then last night a series of ten FT+10% (300w) intervals 1 min on 1 min off, followed by three more 3 min intervals at FT+5% (285w), 3 min recovery in between. This looks to be the first week in 2008 where I break 200 miles. The bike commuting helps. The pounds will now really begin to melt away! Thanks for reading.

New FTP established

These e-mails sure put a spring in my step!:

 

From: "Todd Scheske"

To: "'Murat Altinbasak'"
Subject: RE: charts Sat Sun
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:13:03 -0400

Look at your MMP chart with NP and then look at what the 1:00 NP is.  271.  I notice that you like to grab the "peak 60 minutes", but that isn't necessarily and often is NOT the CP60 you want.  The peak 60 minutes is the best ave watts for an hour.

 

I also noticed that you coasted 18% of the time in the race – so it looks like you were not out there just pulling the field around.  And no surprise then that you got something in the end too.

 

---

From: Murat Altinbasak
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 8:02 AM
To: Todd Scheske
Subject: RE: charts Sat Sun

 

Please tell me where you see such a nice FTP..

I look at CP60 for yesterday- it's 220 I think. Normalized CP60 is 258 or 264. (I'm at work- going by memory)

Do you see something which I don't see?

I mean.. you made my day, really.. I'm psyched.. but I need to buy into it a little more.

Help me understand!

Nice ride and now you have a GOOD measure of your CP60.  I bumped your FTP to 271 starting Saturday based on Sunday's race numbers.

 

TTYL...

 

Todd

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Murat Altinbasak

Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 2:27 PM
To: Todd Scheske
Subject: charts Sat Sun

 

Raced today up at Wells. Huge field!

Lucky break of 12 got away early and lapped the field.

I took 8th in the final field sprint, which included the guys in the break. Felt good, just some soreness and acidity left over from yesterday. Getting better at accelerating.

ttyl. 

Week No 4: Wells Avenue No 2

The Reader's Digest version goes like this:
Well attended race included Brendan and Murat of the Millwork One Racing team. Someone sat up and deliberately let a gap open early on, 12 guys rode away unfettered never to be seen again.. until they lapped/re-joined us about 50 minutes later.. Sickening. Brendan and Murat spent untold laps at the front pulling/chasing/fighting to close said gap, along with other frustrated guys like Matt K., Kyle G., Eric M.. Final sprint included everyone and their brother with two watts left to rub together. Yours Truly is 8th in the field sprint.. meaning I wasted at least five of those who were in the break.. probably more. Brendan hot on my heels and looking as solid as ever after a tough day of racing Saturday at Charge Pond. In our new uniforms we looked pretty slick too. Power Meter numbers tell a promising story- my form today is very close towhat it was in July 2007, based upon today's CP20 and CP60 values. Yesterday's ride was 270 TSS- so the legs were pretty thrashed even before racing started today. Thanks for reading.

Tour of Turkey boosted by five ProTour teams

by Jean-François Quénet

While cycling in the sport's traditional European countries has been complicated this year by political battles, there are big ambitions for the sport in new areas of development. The Presidential Tour of Turkey is one race which has gained more attention with an upgrade to the 2.1 category, luring five ProTour teams for its 44th edition from April 13 to 20. The event was won last year by Bulgarian Ivailo Gabrovski when it was still a 2.2 race.

The Tour of Turkey will feature 25 teams, among them five ProTour teams: Milram, Lampre, Saunier Duval, Silence-Lotto and Astana. The Kazakh team is expected to line up Andreas Klöden, Vladimir Gusev and Tomas Vaitkus. The biggest name on the start list should be Alessandro Petacchi who used to take part – and win most of the stages – in the Niedersachsen Rundfahrt but the historical German race is cancelled this year due to a lack of funds.

The Presidential Tour of Turkey will start on the same day as Paris-Roubaix with a 79km criterium in Istanbul. The riders will then fly to Izmir and ride along the Mediterranean coastal side to Alanya. An extremely scenic route will welcome to the stars of cycling.

The participants:
ProTour Teams: Milram (Ger), Lampre (Ita), Saunier Duval (Spa), Silence-Lotto (Bel), Astana (Lux)
Professional Continental teams: Benfica (Por), Karpin-Galicia (Spa), Mitsubishi-Jartazi (Est), Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni (Ven), CSF Group-Navigare (Ita), NGC Medical (Swi), PSK Whirlpool (Cze)
Continental teams: Bourgas (Bul), Team Ista (Ger), Cosmote Kastro (Gre), Atlas-Römers (Swi), Liberty Seguros (Por), Tyrol-Team Radland (Aut), Sparta Praha (Cze), Partizan (Ser), Stegcomputer-CKT (Swi); 4 national teams: Netherlands, Ireland, Turkey, Brisa

The route.
April 13: Criterium Istanbul, 79.2km.
April 14: Izmir-Kusadasi, 132.7km
April 15: Kusadasi-Bodrum, 165.9km
April 16: Bodrum-Marmaris, 166.8km
April 17: Marmaris-Oludeniz, 177.7km
April 18: Kalkan-Finike, 100.1km
April 19: Finike-Antalya, 115.8km
April 20: Antalya-Alanya, 136.6km

Official Tour of Turkey website.

 

Looks like Murat's hopes are dashed! In years past, the overall purse was only about 15,000 Euros. This year, it's ten fold.. and has attracted the ProTour teams to prove it. I've chatted with Joe Papp who won stages there a few years ago.. I reached out to him because I wanted to make a good call about trying to get my ass in there. He said it would be the hardest thing I've ever done but that I'd regret it forever if I didn't try. I agreed.. but that was before I discovered that the 44th edition would include real pro teams. It used to be a bunch of Eastern European and Middle Eastern teams that I believe I could survive racing with..I've raced with the elites and National Team members in Turkey before- kicked all their asses back in 1989 when I was a junior in fact.. Not anymore! They've evolved into quite a force.. or at least they better have if they want to make the time cuts.. Maybe I should just go to Turkey in June for Masters Nationals where I actually have a realistic chance at the podium.

Word of the Day: "Expeleration"

For the past two Saturdays, I've trained indoors to avoid the terrible climate outside. This means that an otherwise three hour endurance ride has to be modified for indoor duration and intensity. So what I do is repeat Tuesday night's workout and add 30 minutes of zone 2 to the end. Tuesday's program goes like this:
20 minute warm up
3 minutes FT+10% (for me this is about 270 watts, right now)
3 minutes Recovery
Repeat 2 more times
10 minute Recovery
3 minutes FT+10%
Repeat 1 more time
5 minutes recovery
Let me give you a visual of the meat and potatoes of this workout:

I applied 30 second smoothing so the data isn't so choppy. Please bear in mind that during the intervals, my PT display is set to show average watts, so I don't know when I've spiked or dropped wattage, I'm just aiming to manipulate the average as I go. Also notice the heart rate and how it increases during the interval, peaking at the last second. Not for nothing, but I believe that trying to do this workout with a HRM would attain a much different result in output- not necessarily a bad thing- just different. But that's coming from an admitted sufferer of OCD.. which will explain my infatuation with power data.. Anywho.. As you can see, I'm already tired going into this session. Each interval starts out strong and there's some weakness in the middle and then a strong finish at the end. It so happens that this past weekend was the final two days of a pretty stressful 4 week build, which the chart at the top will attest to.

Long story short, this means that I was not prepared to be a strong contender at either Bethel last Sunday, or at Ninigret yesterday. Fresh legs were needed, and mine were over-cooked. What I seem to have built up over the past 2000+ miles which began on Nov 18th is: cruising speed. Yesterday I can go at a pretty good clip and make average Joe suffer and wince in my wake- so long as the tempo didn't change.. but as soon as someone jumped and the speed of the pack went up 5 mph in an instant, I experienced something I will call "Expeleration™".. which is defined as "an acceleration which causes one to have sensations of riding their bike in reverse and getting spit out the back of a pack of bike racers." So yes, much like it happened at Bethel last Sunday, a certain expeleration™ in minute 10 of Ninigret required me to sit up and question whether I should regret not suffering through the episode or whether I was wise to catch my breath and try again. I soft pedaled to the start finish and cut across the course, taking what amounted to a half lap breather. From then on though, it was game-on. I rode with some [former] AFD and NBX folks- 6 or 7 of us total, and we did a nice rotation for the remaining 40 minutes of our race. I tended to take my pull from the fifth left hander out in back, all the way to the finish. Felt strong. People remarked to me that I was strong, but "what happened in the beginning there?" Seemed to me that Jim Peters, Mike M of AFD (riding a pristine 90's CONCORDE made rom STEEL) and myself did the lion's share of work while others skipped pulls repeatedly. In the end, we were lapped of course.. and I even sprinted for the line just because I felt like sprinting.. and almost took the "field sprint" if you can call it that- the field was shattered all over the course- with no telling who was in what position or who was lapped 3 times.. anyway, one guy came around me at the end.. but it felt good to finally accelerate on my own terms, at my own personal zone 5b.. Afterwards, team mate Brendan and I did a 60 minute tour of Charlestown, rode the old Bob Beal course in reverse.. after that my OCD kicked in again and I resolved to complete 3 full hours of riding so I did another 15 laps on the Ninigret couse by myself, which was more meditative than beneficial to my form.. Brendan was in the lead break for the first 15 minutes of racing and I was so happy to see him up there with Amos and Adam S and other big engines. He had to ease off later on but did a fine job of finishing somewhere in the top 6-8 guys. Bravo.
Today marks the beginning of a rest week- just a few active recovery zone 1/2 rides until Saturday- when a Field Test is scheduled to check my FT level. Weather permitting, this will be done on the road, as it should be. Future 08 training will be mostly outside, so establishing the new FT outside is kind of important.
Thanks for reading. Please spare me the "I-am-a-purist-and-ride-by-feel-and-you-suck-because-you're-a-slave-to-an-overpriced-toy" rhetoric. I don't need it. I don't appreciate it. Tongue-in-cheek one-liners are okay..

Must be nice..

..to debate a topic without an opponent.. When I'm at work, I can't get into Blogger to reply to comments on anyone's blog- I can only do this from home. So I then need to resort to using my own blog as a venue, just to get a word in. To answer the latest comments:

1. You're putting words in my mouth. I do not dismiss the effectiveness of training without a power meter. As you point out, I myself did it for 20 years. FOR ME, it's a lot more fun to use one!.. and effective too!, especially when training time is limited and you want/need to optimize your workouts for maximum benefit. I do not train hard because it's fun and enjoyable. That's why I race (for fun). Successful training makes racing a lot more fun.. Do the math.  

2. When I took my first 20 minute TT (as part of my first Field Test) I did not even know what the numbers meant, or how to record intervals or how to even view the average power on the readout. It was the first day I ever used the thing and I just let it run like a flight data recorder while I did the best 20 minutes I possibly could.

3. I have never aspired to be a runner or a skier.

4. I do not belilttle those who train without a power meter. If I come off that way, it's just reciprocation 'in-kind' of the attitude towards power meters, which prevails.

5. There's no shame in being dropped by you, SB. PT or organic training.. no shame. 

And Ge: Not all 3 minute intervals are alike. Needless to say, you can take FT and add/subtract whatever percentage is necessary to get the desired stress/workout.

"Pain is pain. Suffer for three minutes." says a lot about your approach to training!  

It might be fine and dandy for you to just hit the broad side of a barn.. for me personally, I want to hit a much smaller target because I'm looking for a very specific result from the training.

Franz Wright's words of wisdom

"Letter" January 1998

I am not acquainted with anyone there,

if they spoke to me

I would not know what to do.

But so far nobody has, I know

I certainly wouldn't.

I don't participate, I'm not allowed;

I just listen, and every morning

have a moment of such happiness, I breathe

and breathe until the terror returns. About the time

when they are supposed to greet one another

two people actually look into each other's eyes

and hold hands a moment, but

the church is so big and the few who are there

are seated far apart. So this presents no real problem.

I keep my eyes fixed on the great naked corpse, the vertical corpse

who is said to be love

and who spoke the world

into being, before coming here

to be tortured and executed by it.

I don't know what I am doing there. I do notice the more I lose touch

with what I previously saw as my life

the more real my spot in the dark winter pew becomesâ€"it is infinite. What we experience

as space, the sky

that is, the sun, the stars

is intimate and rather small by comparison.

When I step outside the ugliness is so shattering

it has become dear to me, like a retarded

child, precious to me.

If only I could tell someone.

The humiliation I go through

when I think of my past

can only be described as grace.

We are created by being destroyed.

-Franz Wright

..and now.. you know the rest of the story. I listened to Franz read this piece during an interview on NPR one day, and those last few lines made me want to pull over on the side of the road and put my head in my hands and cry. Those last six words continue to ring in my head and there isn't a day which passes that they don't cross my mind or my lips- albeit silently- to myself like a prayer or a national anthem where your voice is silent but your mouth wants people to think otherwise. As with the poisonous chemotherapy which my dear father is enduring these days as he fights the cancers in his body, so too does the phrase apply to the sport I love, in which stressing and breaking down the body systems causes adaptations which make them stronger and better. So I applied these words to my two blogs, and to the new uniforms of my bike racing team- on the back of the collar. It's hard to make out, but you can see it here, bottom center. To listen or read exerpts of the show which I believe I caught on NPR that day.. click here.

Yeah I love crunching the numbers..

..but the last thing I will do is tell anyone else how to "get faster" (except for having a PLAN to follow- aim for nothing and you'll hit it every time- there should be a plan, even if it resides only in your head)

To each his own.. I don't do periodic brain dumps here in order to draw criticism to myself or to criticize others. I do what I do.. the way I want to do it, the way in which I most enjoy it and the way which fires me up the most. My way won't work for everyone, or even many, or even a few. It might be completely incompatible with your ideals, beliefs, principles and values. I like sharing my experiences and hearing feedback- that's cool.

I do not pretend to have 'figured it all out'. But I do believe that I'm stressing my systems and forcing them to adapt using proven methods and techniques. Even so, I know that there's a coin flip of a chance between success and failure. I believe in chance and luck and karma and having a bad day and having a great day, and chaos, and having little or no control over things like crashes, Illness, tendonitis, IT bands, Saddle sores, the weather, a flat tire, gravel in a corner..

The one thing I can control is the frequency, duration and intensity of my training, when all of the above is favorable, that is..

If I choose to do a sloppy job of managing the few things I AM able to control, then I have no business being on a podium anywhere, and I have no excuse to piss and moan about missing the podium either.

Ride and train with a purpose. If this is too hard for you, then refrain from professing about how to train.. unless you enjoy indoctrinating an audience on matters which you yourself don't take very seriously. 

Ass was handed to me!

Nothing I could do.. It's the end of my third week into this build period. Been working very hard.. Yesterday's workout was intense.. Today I had to sit up after 7 laps... Took a one lap breather.. Tried again for another 7 or so laps.. Didn't have it.. Not today. The Pro field was inspired today.. 60+ strong and loaded with 20-something horsepower... One more hard week and it's a rest week beginning on 3/10. I look forward to the recovery. I'll be back.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Okay now I'm home.. and I don't feel so bad now that I know that the first ten minutes of the race were harder than the best ten minutes of my best race result of 2007- where I was 12th at New Britain. (Being 12th doesn't sound so great until you consider that I emptied the tank up to the final corner, making it through first, and I held on for dear life while 11 guys managed to pass me on that long sprint- I repeated this in the 30+ race which followed- first through the corner and 12th in the sprint)
At any rate:
Today's first 10 minutes: 228 avg watts, 322 watts normalized
New Britain 35+ 2007: 227 avg watts, 286 watts normalized
So all things considered.. I'm happy about today. I know that I was a little bit shell shocked with the accelerations and a little bit intimidated too, having not really raced since September 16th, where I crashed badly at Bob Beal.. Afterward, I rode down route 53 and 107 and route 7 to get some more saddle time in. Wifey leapfrogged me periodically in the car and then picked me up before we got on the Merrit Parkway.
Before I forget, let me salute my friend Ted S. for doing the 40+ and later also doing the P-1-2-3 with me. He looked as cool as a cucumber and seems poised to have a great year in 2008.