31.3.13

2013.18: "Build 2.2" - 3/25 - 3/31

Once again, illness gets the best of my training.

Sunday: Same.  Note that none of these days included riding.

Saturday: More throat pain.

Friday: Went to the doctor.  I have a non-strep throat infection.  What the heck?

Thursday: Burning throat hell.

Wednesday: Starting to feel a sore throat.  Yesterday I had a pain up in my sinuses almost like I had breathed in water.

Tuesday: Rode with Karl.  Approximately 3 hours of easy riding for Karl.  I was aiming for endurance pace, so I pulled for the first hour or so.  Karl did three standing starts.  I half-assed 2.5 of them.  Karl also led me out for a KOM sprint, which I was able to get.  Also it was warmish.  Warm enough that I didn't wear leg warmers.  I still had fleecy bibs and a fleecy jacket, but no leg warmers.  Fuck yeah tan lines!
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/289228731
NP/IF/TSS: 181W/0.821/228

Monday: Rest day.  Rested.

30.3.13

2013.17: Build 2.1 - 3/18 - 3/24

I don't even know what build period or week I am in anymore.  Deal with it.

Sunday: Trained at the track with Sree.  Brean and Iliana were there doing their thing, too.  We did some warm-up laps, a sprint, some standing starts, a flying 200, and I tested out my front disc on the track.  It is the weirdest feeling.  It doesn't feel squirrelly, to the contrary it feels like it wants to track straight too much.  Depending on where the wind is coming from, it can feel like no matter how hard you want to turn, it'll keep going straight.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/288556506
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Saturday: Red bull minidrome.  What a dumb event.  All red bull events are poorly planned...but they're free, so can I really complain?  Yes, yes I can.  When I have to break down a door to get my bike back because security won't let me in and NYPD couldn't care less about me, that's when I can complain.  No data.

Friday: Sacked up and rode to work.  It was very cold and very windy.  That's all I remember.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/287553102
NP/IF/TSS: 207W/0.936/217

Thursday: nothing. one or more of these days it was snowing, raining, or threatening to snow/rain.  I can't remember which day(s).

Wednesday: nothing.

Tuesday: nothing.

Monday: Rest day. rested.

18.3.13

2013.16: Build 1.4 - 3/11-3/17

This is that big week in the yearly calendar that includes all the cool dates.  311 day, pi day, the ides of march, and st pats.  What a mix.  Note that IMHO 311 actually sucks.

Also note that this should have been a rest week.  Since the last few weeks were pitiful, I've changed my plan to be two weeks hard (this week & next), rest week, 2 weeks hard, rest week.

Sunday: Day off, so I tried to get a good long endurance ride in, fixed gear style.  I only got out the door around 3pm, so it wasn't too long.  This turned out to be perfectly fine, because I was completely tore up by the time I got home.  I had two gels during the ride and was still bonking at the end.  Usually I can go 60ish miles with just one gel.  I don't know if it's the fixed gear or just general suckage.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/285823376
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Saturday: I wanted to ride to work again today, but this time I had to bring my personal set of cleaning brushes.  Some times I wish work actually provided basic supplies to do my job.

Friday: Rode again today.  Colder and windier, with a much less enjoyable return trip.  There was a more realistic number of drivers on the way home.  Which sucked.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/284715347
NP/IF/TSS: 205W/0.927/210

Thursday: No riding today.  I wanted to, but I had to bring in my personal tools to work again.

Wednesday: Rode to work.  Going in was a pretty good headwind, but it was warm(ish) and nice on the way back.  The roads were surprisingly quiet, too.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/284077876
NP/IF/TSS: 203W/0.916/204

Tuesday: Intervals in the afternoon.  3x4min with 4 min rest.  I had to shut it down for a little bit halfway through the middle interval, but I was able to mostly power through the third.  Also, I forgot my HRM, so no HR data.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/283655419

NP/IF/TSS: 206W/0.932/45
Int / Avg Power / Max Power / Avg Cadence
1 - 271 - 306 - 100 -
2 - 253 - 330 - 100 -
3 - 271 - 334 - 103 -


Monday: One more rest day.  Rested.  Now that daylight savings is saving daylight, I used today to see just how much daylight I would have after work.  I've deemed it to be a sufficient amount.

R13.07 - Race: Grant's Tomb Crit

This is another late race report, so deal with the fact that most of the details are probably actually wrong.

I went into the week of the race being sick.  I don't know if it was a flu, cold, pneumonia, or what, but I wasn't feeling well up until a couple of days before.  As such, I didn't really expect to do well at all.  In fact, I had the prime expectation of the race being a painful journey through offthebackistan.  A day or two before the race, I also came to the horrible realization that my race was scheduled to start at 7:30am.  This meant getting up from a not-too-productive night's sleep at 4am to get to the course on time.  I packed the night before, deciding that despite the snow that was falling and the threat of cancellation, temperatures were supposed to be in the 50s, and so I would be able to make do with just a long sleeve skinsuit.  Just in case there was a team ride afterward, I also packed some warmer clothing.

I drowsily made my way to the race, parked surprisingly easily, registered, and then came to grips with the fact that it was stupidly cold.  There was a delay in the start, so I spent the time putting on every article of clothing I had.  Wool socks, leg warmers, fleece bibs, base, arm warmers, jersey, fleece jacket, fleece cap, gloves.  I felt good, actually, when I got out of the car.  Mark J and I did some laps of the course to check out the ice situation, and then I stood around for the cat 5 race to start and the cat 4's to line up.

The cat 4 field seemed to line up very early, because I remember looking over and seeing a bunch of people staging, riding over, and then standing at the back of the group with Mark freezing my ass off.  I was full body shaking by the time the race got under way.  Of course, starting in the back meant a mad dash to try to move up in the pack, which was very difficult with ice cold muscles.

This is basically how the race played out.  I was just at the back for maybe 8 laps, when finally too large of a gap opened and I accepted the fact that I could not feel my hands at all to even shift or brake.  Had this not been the case, I would have kept chasing.  Oh well.  Another inauspicious road race for me.  It took a day or two for my result to finally bother me, at which point I was very annoyed by my performance (or lack thereof).

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/282402800
NP/IF/TSS: 231W/1.047/34

12.3.13

2013.15: Build 1.3 - 3/4 - 3/10

This will be an easy week to write about.  So much for getting training in before my rest week.

Sunday: Nothing.  I'm finally feeling normal(ish).  Next week resumes training.

Saturday: Grant's Tomb Crit.  See the race report.

Friday: nuh-uh.

Thursday: Nope, still not.

Wednesday: Still Sick.  Still no riding.

Tuesday: Sick.  No riding.

Monday: Rest day.  No riding.

2.3.13

2013.14: Build 1.2 - 2/25 - 3/3

Sunday: I got a short ride in just to see how I felt.  It was done on the nashfix.  That bike feels very cramped.  I might need to re-evaluate my fit on it.  The ride itself went well enough.  I yelled at some guy who I felt passed me too close.  He disagreed, but eventually was persuaded to see my side.  I blew a lot of snot rockets.  Thick, goopy, yellow shit.  Being sick sucks.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/280128630
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Saturday: Definitely sick.  No riding.  I'm very achy and decently loopy.

Friday: I was going to do the kreb ride, but I wasn't feeling too hot, so I decided to sleep in a bit instead.  Eventually I got out on the nashfix to try some fixed gear cornering drills down at morriches park.  I think if I do a bunch more of these, I'll get much more used to cornering while pedaling and life will be good. One thing I noticed while riding was that I felt like shit.  I think I'm getting sick.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/279038715
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Thursday: Toooore up. No riding.

Wednesday: Intervals.  3x6.5 with 3.5 rest.  I had trouble keeping the power up.
http://connect.garmin.com/splits/278464227
NP/IF/TSS: 208W/0.941/63

Int / Avg Power / Max Power / Avg Cadence / Avg HR
1 - 250 - 307 - 103 - 173
2 - 253 - 293 - 100 - 179
3 - 256 - 444 - 101 - 181


Tuesday: Helped my brother hang some sheetrock today.  No riding, but I did get to inhale plenty of drywall dust.

Monday: Rest day.  Recovered from the weekend.

1.3.13

2013.13: Build 1.1 - 2/18 - 2/24

I've been slacking with the ol' bloggyblog.  I'll try to keep up to date more.

Sunday: Day two of the team camp.  Most people left either saturday night or sunday morning, but I stayed a bit late with steve since the two of us were pretty hung over.  I was able to get a ride in with Brean at least.  I was wet and had a pounding headache, but we went to the light house.  Brean was strong.  I was not so much.  Hopefully that's just from the drinking.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/277438233
NP/IF/TSS: 208W/0.943/87 (Note that these two montauk rides have the same CP and IF)

Saturday: The team had a "training camp" out in montauk.  Since the weather was shitty, we all brought rollers.  I got there late and tried to ride for a little bit.  My legs were still shot, though.  Again, work didn't help.  I got one interval in, but by the second interval, I was shot.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/277438243
NP/IF/TSS: 208W/0.943/26

Friday: I was feeling very tired from work and the intervals this week, so I tried to just roll my legs out.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/276445785
NP/IF/TSS: 153W/0.690/14

Thursday: Nada.

Wednesday: More intervals.  These were longer at 3 x 7 minutes with 3 minutes rest.  I don't think they were quite AE interval level.  I guess they were cruise intervals.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/275844662
NP/IF/TSS: 200W/0.906/61
Int / Avg Power / Max Power / Avg Cadence / Avg HR
1 - 240 - 265 - 98 - 164
2 - 242 - 273 - 99 - 169
3 - 244 - 419 - 100 - 173


Tuesday: Attempted to do hill repeats.  Unfortunately, the roads were covered in crud and there were town trucks blocking one of the roads.  I was able to sneak by, but shortly afterward I stopped to adjust my rear brake and realized my rear tire was going flat.  Fortunately, it was a very slow leak, and I was able to limp home.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/275800221
NP/IF/TSS: 217W/0.983/29

Monday: Rest day.  Did intervals instead.  Three intervals of 6 minutes with 4 minutes rest.  I like my total interval/rest time to be 10 minutes to make the math easier for when to go hard again.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/275159169
NP/IF/TSS: 207W/0.938/64
Int / Avg Power / Max Power / Avg Cadence / Avg HR
1 - 261 - 324 - 107 - 178
2 - 257 - 329 - 110 - 179
3 - 262 - 367 - 108 - 182