27.12.11

2012.05: Base 2 Week 1

Sunday: No riding again.

Saturday: After yesterday's ride I needed roughly 125 miles.  The plan was to ride out to Rocky Point, do Percy's RP2IPBP-JP ride, try out Percy's new espresso machine and then ride home with whatever detours would be necessary in order to meet my mileage.  In reality, I woke up to rain.  So I went back to bed, waking up around 1pm, so I gave up on riding at all.

Friday: Some quick math told me that I needed to do two days of 118ish miles each in order to complete the festive 500.  Why not, I figured.  As such, I rode down to bellport to meet up with the friday morning Kreb ride, did the ride, then rode up to the LIE service road and over to Syosset.  Along the way I met up with a guy training for a triathlon by the name of Avi.  Nice guy, conversation helped to keep my mind off the fact that I was already 70 miles in to my day.  He showed me a cool back way up to Pulaski.  We parted ways there and I got to Roadworx to pick up some parts that I had ordered.  Chatted for a while as usual, then headed back home, almost being hit by a pickup truck that didn't understand the principles of how to properly pass someone on a bicycle.  What else is new.  All in all it only ended up being roughly 110 miles, but still better than nothing.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/137577910
NP/IF/TSS: 168W/0.647/286

Thursday: This week is more than half over and my riding has gone straight downhill.  Maybe I should have stayed in the city longer.  I had signed up for this strava festive 500 thing, where I'm supposed to ride 500km between the 23rd and 31st of December.  It sounded like a piece of cake based on the amount of riding I had done in the city, but now I'm pretty sure I'm fucked.

Wednesday: Nothing.  Did some transverse planks at night.

Tuesday: Rode down to Penn station from the apartment.  Managed to make it in time for the train, so kudos to me.  Data to follow.  Also, it was a solid headwind the whole way down.  That part sucked.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/137350417

Monday: rest day.  rested.

19.12.11

2012.04: Base 1 Week 4 - Rest

Well this is supposed to be my rest week after my first base set, but since training was so intermittent and since I'm in NYC, I'm planning on doing some non-rest style riding.

Sunday: Christmas day.  Did the traditional J-Crew ride with Ron and company.  I think we had 7 people this year, which is always nice.  It was a pretty timid ride, which is also nice this time of year.  I did go full bore on river road though, but didn't get any PR's or anything via strava.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/136318650
No power data.

Saturday: No riding.  Woke up late, packed, heading home soon.

Friday: Out to Piermont again with Andy.  It was a good not-quite-training ride consisting of turning the screws on each other for most of the ride.  It also was a bit of a shakedown ride for the newly installed Force crank and RD on his bike.  We visted Mattie at work and had some coffee and muffins down in Piermont and then headed back along 9W.  A typical NYC ride, if I do say so myself.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/136045621
NP/IF/TSS: 199W/0.765/117

Thursday: Rode to Bear Mountain with Tadeusz.  The ride was a lot hillier than I figured.  My legs were definitely hurting by the end.  Also, looking at my power numbers from GCheetah, I'm starting to think I need to re-evaluate my CP, as this ride certainly felt like it should have been above a TSS of 300.  We'll have to see how long it takes for my legs to recover.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/135897631
NP/IF/TSS: 187W/0.719/265

Wednesday: No riding.  Went home for the day.

Tuesday: Very late start today.  Like 2pm or so.  As such, all I did was ride across the GWB and up the full length of River Road.  It was surprisingly hilly, particularly the end.  I had a weird spike in my power data, but replaced it with zeros in GCheetah in order to come to my power numbers below.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/135586911
NP/IF/TSS: 210W/0.809/82

Monday: Rest day.  Rested after yesterday's ride and Gil's going away party.  I walked around the South Street Seaport late in the day and went to a marine supply place to price out a sextant.

13.12.11

2012.03: Base 1 Week 3

Sunday: Got to ride up to Piermont with Brean.  It was a cold day, windy, etc.  But all in all, a fun ride and nice to finally get to ride with Brean on the road.  I ended up riding back down to Staten Island with him and taking the ferry back over to manhattan.  I met a guy on the ferry that's trying to sell some vintage italian bikes and some other stuff.  Maybe I'll take a look at the wares.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/135268764
NP/IF/TSS: 185W/0.71/219

Saturday: No riding.  Did some work around the house instead.  Eventually I headed to the city to help take care of my brother's cats for a few days.

Friday: Rode for a little near the end of the day just because I could. I felt pretty out of it the whole ride. I don't know if that's a lack of riding or something else (lack of quality sleep is a certain possibility). Either way, I almost bit it hard when I turned onto the little MUP at west meadow beach. I had my hands off the bars to unzip my jacket when a gust of wind hit me. It blew me one way, I oversteered opposite, unclipped one pedal and rolled into the sand. Fortunately, I didn't go down, but unfortunately for my nice clean drive train, I kicked up a ton of sand, so more cleaning tonight.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/134829213
NP/IF/TSS: 173W/0.665/62

Thursday: It was supposed to rain today, so I figured I would just skip riding. It didn't though. It was windy, however, so I feel better about being a bum.

Wednesday: Stopped in at Roadworx for a DFU demonstration. We came to the conclusion that my achilles trouble is tendinitis from doing deep squats and my knee trouble is probably a pulled muscle from riding goofy. The prescription is just to ease into riding again. So there.

Tuesday: Based on the right leg pains I've been having, I've decided it might be in my best interest to take it easy this week. It sounds like I might have tendinitis. I'm heading to Roadworx (home of the new Guru DFU) tomorrow, so I'll have to ask Will what the heck I'm doing wrong. Maybe it's a cleat issue. Maybe I just suck at riding.

Monday: Felt better today, so even though monday should be a rest day, I decided to get a short spin in. I rode to the lighthouse and the beach as usual. My achilles started acting up again on the ride, though, so I headed back home instead of checking out the other two beaches. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/134235001
NP/IF/TSS: 171W/0.656/58

6.12.11

2012.02: Base 1 Week 2

Sunday: Woke up very sore and tired, so I just stayed inside all day and kept it easy. I felt bad that I missed out on the last CX race, but there was no way I was going to make it there and be any kind of useful.

Saturday: The knee was very painful today. I tended to that today, with a hot bath and an ice pack.

Friday: Rode over to the friday morning Kreb ride. I was running a little late, so I decided to meet the group along the way. I took woodside road out, but unsure of whether I would be able to meet up by beaver dam road, I turned up station road and went through yaphank instead. Surprisingly though, I only saw the group halfway down River road, which means I probably could have rendezvoused as originally planned. My right knee started acting up along the ride, and by the time i got home was pretty sore. It felt almost like my hamstring was tight or something. Maybe it's some tendonitis. Regardless, here's data:
NP/IF/TSS: 180W/0.692/170

Thursday: Due to a massive scheduling screw-up, the middle of my day was taken up by a dental appointment, so once again, no riding.

Wednesday: More rain. Didn't feel like doing more roller work, so nothing today. (and so it begins).

Tuesday: Did some spin work on the rollers. The usual 1 minute on by 4 minutes off. 145-155-165-155-145rpm.
Time: 25:01

Monday: Rest day. Rested. and it was good!
EDIT-I did some calf raises, transverse planks, and standard planks at night.

5.12.11

Race: LI Cyclocross #2 12/4

Today was race number two of the LICX series. I had said that I would help set up and possibly race, but I was very tempted to just stay home and sleep through it, as I got minimal sleep throughout the night. However, my current aspirations to not be an asshole prevailed and i dragged myself out of bed. After having a minimal breakfast due to bugs eating my chocolate chips (stupid bugs), I rode to the course and got to work. After set-up, I did some warm-up laps of the course trying to think of any excuse not to race. This is what I came up with:
-Too tired
-Not enough nutrition
-Sore from roller racing
-Should probably help as a course marshal
-Poor shifting
-Forgot my race license

Of course, Gregory and Chris convinced me to still give it a go, even if to ride easy. I did another lap and felt a little better and then lined up for the start. I started mid-rear of the pack, as I had no aspirations to do well at all. The start of the first lap up until the barrier I was able to make up some ground, however, but then over the next lap or two, I started dropping back again. My lower back started killing me and I decided to throw in the towel after the third lap. I went through half the race, which was good enough for me. In hindsight, had I kept up with it, I probably would have done better than I thought, but whatever. There's always next week.