Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Monday, February 25, 2008

This is the first weekend in a while that I've had where my ride schedule has been entirely determined by me. It was also the first weekend where we actually had reasonably good weather both days. Given this, I feel like it's been about the most fun of any weekend I've had on the bike in a while.

Saturday the wind was up at a pretty good clip so I rode into it for the first half of the ride and then got to turn around. I sort of slogged through the first part of the ride but managed to keep my average above 20 mph and when I made the turn I was Lance Armstrong all of the sudden; riding at 25+ mph. I did a little climbing on the route but mostly it was good tempo work.

On Sunday the wind had subsided and we needed to head down to Tarmac to get a few things so I plotted out a metric century route and headed out about noon. Despite not feeling great at first, I sort of yelled at myself for being a weenie for a bit and got my legs going by about mile 10 and then really got on top of a big gear. I kept telling myself that I wanted to meet this goal or that at a certain speed and managed to talk my way through the entire ride. At the end I had done 64 miles at a 22 mph average which was phenomenal.

The only negative for the whole weekend is that I hit a sharp piece of gravel in the road and cut down one of my new Maxxis tires. It's one of the hazards down here when it rains. On the country roads the drainage is usually bad enough that when we get a lot of rain, as we've done over the last week or so, the runoff pushes a lot of stuff out into the roads where the cars tend to scatter it through intersections. I managed to use the old dollar bill fix to get myself home but the tire was a loss which is a bit of a bummer

On a random note, I've kind of decided that on real training rides I'm not going to listen to podcasts anymore. I dig listening but I think that my mind wanders from the task at hand and I end up not pushing myself as hard. I'll still listen on recovery days but when I want to train I'll keep it music only. This likely means I'll have to cut back on the number of podcasts I download. I get way too many now and my listening time will diminish now.

On another note, the Bicycling magazine "Buyer's Guide" came to my home this week. For the first time I felt no pangs of bike lust. While I admired the Pinerello Prince in an ad I didn't really feel this desire to own it. I guess I'm pretty happy with what I've got and the only thing that really gets me excited is the Specialized Tarmac SL frame in Candy Apple red. Boy is that a sweet looking frame. I've also been digging the Stumpjumper FSR frame this year. I really like the lines...very swoopy, which is cool for a mountain bike.

This week is all recovery rides. I woke up last night and my whole body was stiff from the metric. I could feel all of my body's power channels from my shoulders down to my legs because they were all complaining. Not badly enough to have to take anything but enough to remind me that I'm not 35 anymore. So I'll spin around in the nice weather today and ride inside for the rain and wind we're supposed to get for tomorrow and Wednesday. This coming weekend is the Albany Georgia Cup race and so I want to be set for that.

Anyways, thanks for reading and have a great week.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, February 18, 2008

Well, it was Tundra Time Trial time again and I went up to see how my body was doing. We had great weather for the race and I was curious to see where my fitness was. I got up there early (which was nice) and did a good warm up. It was weird to dust off all of the time trial gear after not using it since last year's TTT. I feel a lot better this year and I'm looking forward to doing a lot more racing.

I got to the start line and took off with an excellent start. Almost immediately I caught my 30 second, 1 minute, 1:30 and 2 minute rabbits and was feeling good. As I rode though, I noticed that I couldn't get my heart rate up over 162. Now normally I ride at around 170 for my lactate threshold and I was ten beats below that. I was concerned but I also seemed to be riding fast. I told myself that my body was only going to do what it would do and that I had to do the best with what it gave me. Then I went over a bridge on the course and a huge bump flatted my back tire. Race over. As I turned around and rolled back to the start, it occurred to me to ask for a new start time to see if I could get he tube replaced and try again. Fortunately, the official for the day, John, was really generous and gave me a new start.

So I changed the tube, got back to the start line and John slotted me in pretty quickly after that. This time I screwed up my start. Iw as in way too big a gear and it took 10-15 seconds to sort that out. I was rolling but not accelerating up to speed the way I should have. Once again I had the heart rate limit but this time I was chasing some faster guys so I decided to really see if I could push up over the 160 limit my body was imposing. After trying that for about 5 minutes and then throwing up on myself (yes, I puked on the bike) I decided that my body had it right and to ride with what it gave me. I caught two guys by the turnaround and at the turnaround I had a really good turn. As I powered out I realized that something had switched over in my body and I was able to go about 4 bpm harder. As I motored back to the finish line I really felt good and fast. My legs felt like they had a lot of power. At one point though, I lost focus because of thinking about this stuff and then looked down to see my HR down to 157. Refocusing, I was able to push myself back up to my limit.

I finished the course in 22:06 (9 miles) which was a personal record for me but I still finished fifth. The weather made everyone faster and the level of competition for this thing keeps going up. Still, even with finishing off the podium, I felt pretty good about my ride. I'm still getting over a cold and I didn't specifically taper for the event like I've done in years past so I'm pretty good with this as a fitness test. I'll race the Georgia Cup race down in Albany in a couple of weeks as another fitness test/training race and then Perry-Roubaix two weeks after that. The Albany course is pan flat so I don't expect to do much other than hang with the pack but it'll be good practice for that. the Perry course has a couple of really good hills in it so that'll be a better indication. It also has a really good TT course they've used in past years and I'm hoping they'll do the same thing this year so I can use that as a fitness check.

Hopefully, I'll have lost 10 more pounds by the end of March and I'll be at a good race weight by then for what I consider the heart of my season; May-September.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Ouch. Ouch, Ouch, Ouch. No really, Ouch!

That's what my body is saying to my brain right now. Why? Because I, on Groundhog Day, decided to join the Pain Train's annual Double Metric Century. Actually, it was 127 miles that included the Pine Mountain Hwy with lots and lots of climbing.

It was billed as a LSD ride. It was for about the first 40 miles or so I guess. We were averaging about 22 mph but lots of the route was downhill. When we hit the climbing I sort of expected we'd ease off. Not so much. I don't know why the group felt like it had to do a double metric in February at that kind of pace but it did. We hit the 70 mile mark averaging over 21.5 and that was after a lot of the really hard climbing. I got dropped about 65 miles in when a couple of guys decided to push the pace for no other reason than they felt like it. Did I mention that there were no stops planned up to that point. We had a SAG vehicle but there was no real chance to get a new bottle so I did 70 miles on two bottles. At the 70 mile mark the SAG vehicle stopped to allow us to get new bottles (whoo-whoo...two more for the last 58 miles!!!) and shed some clothes and eat a little.

I was only a few minutes behind the main group but by the time I got there I was pissed. I don't mind the better riders going hard but don't advertise it as an easy pace LSD ride if you're going to decide to hammer at mile 40. There were guys with powermeters reporting numbers in the 700+ plus wattage range for some of these parts of the ride. Why? What's the point? We don't EVER race 125 miles.

I was also pissed 'cause I got dropped. I hate that I'm fat and slow right now. Used to be that I never got dropped by anyone but the last 18 months and all the stuff I'm doing at school has conspired with my own appetite to put on the pounds. I'll lose the weight (I've already started) but I hate getting dropped. I hate feeling weak.

So, when we left I decided to ride at my own pace. I knew that someone would have to go hard and I'd get dropped anyways so I just rode. For the next twenty miles I was off the front as the ride leader tried to make up for the previous behavior by saying that we'd go slow and then push it a bit later on. Great I thought. No one said anything about pushing anything in the ride post. In fact it specifically said we wouldn't be doing that. Screw it, I decided. Why ride with these guys when they were going to be so capricious? Why try to work with them when they were going to chew me up and spit me out once they decided to stop playing nice.

I rode the rest of the ride by myself. Calling people names on a group ride is considered bad form so I just stayed away and kept my mouth shut. I'm pretty sure I won't be invited back. I'm also pretty sure I don't really give a damn. I'm fat and slow and I'm sick of getting dropped.

But I won't always be fat and slow and I won't forget. They ride every Tuesday and Thursday evening in the summer and I'll go back and I'll remember. When someone suggests going easier I'll turn the screw and make their eyes bleed. I won't wait when some guy gets dropped. I won't have mercy. I'll abandon them to ride back to the car alone feeling frustrated and weak. I will make them fear. And when they ask why I'm such an SOB I'll tell them I learned how the group rides when I did LSD rides over the winter.

Until then I will train and suffer and make myself hurt. I'll save it all up and use it to kindle my rage. Then there will come a day when one of them is a little weak and I'll remember...

The Physicist   Link Me    |