2011.04: 12/20-12/26 Base 2 Week 1

Alright, this is supposed to be week 1 of Base 2. With the holiday season being dumped upon me, that might not happen quite the way it should.

Sunday: The blizzard of '10 is upon us. Did some xc skiing for about a half hour. I think i'm going to invest in some waxless skis.

Saturday: Merry Christmas to all my reader(s?). I was able to wrangle my family into letting me do the annual j-crew ride. Only 3 of us in total, but a great ride nonetheless.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/60583015

Time: 01:45:57

Distance: 31.02mi

Speed: 17.6/35.9mph
Cadence: 92/176rpm
HR: 150/182bpm

NP/IF: 186W/0.84

Friday: I don't think I did anything. work and family, probably.

Thursday: work again. things are getting hectic. no riding. just crawling into a ball and crying myself to sleep.

EDIT: Oh hey, guess who just got shamed into riding? http://connect.garmin.com/activity/60472728

Time: 1:00:01

NP/IF: 170W/0.771

Wednesday: worked, did nothing. fell asleep.

Tuesday: had the day off from work, was going to ride. but it was cold and windy. Instead, I did some bouldering for 2 hours or so. this means probably no long base ride, as my only other day off from work is christmas day. so much for this week.

Monday: rest day, rested.

2011.03: 12/13-12/19 Base 1 Week 3

Week 3. this is a rest week with 3.5 hours scheduled.

Sunday: didn't race. I couldn't get to sleep to save my life, felt like crud in the morning as a result. Did 3x10 squats at night.

Saturday: nothing. planning on racing tomorrow.

Friday: did some spin-ups on the rollers. I didn't fall off this time. hooray! 5 intervals at 140,150,160,150,140 rpm with the track bike. I felt good during it. I definitely think the shorter length cranks on the track bike are much easier to turn over than my 170mm's on the road bikes. This leads me to believe that those guys who say crank length doesn't matter are full of shit who have no clue what they're talking about. Figures that it's namely triathletes who seem to say that. Just goes to show you they have no clue what they're doing. Anyhow, here's some data:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/59952743

Time: 00:31:01

RPM avg for each interval: 142/153/162/152/141rpm

Max: 180rpm

Thursday: nada. long day at work. passed out.

Wednesday: Got a good base ride in today. Not much to say about it.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/59811535

Time: 03:02:13

Distance: 52.07mi

Speed: 17.1/28.9mph

Cadence: 99/126rpm

HR: 151/176bpm

NP/IF: 168W/0.758

Tuesday: had the day off from work. I was hoping to get a long ride in, but it snowed the previous night, so I just plain old didn't want to go out. instead I went walking for approximately 2 hours. gmap pedometer tells me I walked for just over 7 miles. I also rode the rollers for 20 minutes at an easy pace. no data for that as I rode aria, which doesn't have a cadence/speed sensor. this was followed by some stretching.

Monday: rest day. rode to work and did some squats at night. 3x10reps of 60lbs each. i don't know if this is a good amount of weight or not.

2011.02 12/6 - 12/12 Base 1 Week 2

Sunday: nothing again. rain and all. did some core and leg work, though. calf raises and transverse planks.

Saturday: probably nothing. who knows.

Friday: shorter endurance ride. it was less windy today than wednesday, but seemed a lot colder. maybe it was the occasional snow. I think the entire ride was spent thinking "maybe I should just go home". Good to know that despite this, the whole ride was still completed. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/59297830

Time: 2:02:21

Distance: 34.26 mi

Speed: 16.8/36.3 mph

Cadence: 91/121 rpm

HR: 145/173 bpm

NP/IF: 186W / 0.840

Thursday: Rock climbing for 2 hours. I think I'm getting better.

Wednesday: Long endurance ride today. long. not too cold. i think in the low 30's. the hardest part was keeping my fingers warm. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/59161240

Time: 3:20:02

Distance: 57.39 mi

Speed: 17.2/28.2 mph

Cadence: 94/161 rpm

HR: 142/174 bpm

NP/IF: 165W/0.747

Tuesday: Tried spin-ups on rollers. Only did 3 intervals before becoming too sick of the whole thing. I fell off twice. I think i was tired, out of practice and sick of all the crud around me. here's some data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/59104642

Monday: rest day. rested.

2011.01: 11/29-12/5 whoo boy. Base 1 Week 1

well. a new season is upon us. yeesh.

Sunday: Kreb cyclocross race. sorry for not writing a race report, but it can be summarized by this: ouch. rode the monocog, but modified with drop bars. my gear felt too hard for the high grass, but way too low for the asphalt sections. boo. regardless, got 14th out of 37. bam. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/58868600

Time: 55:01

Distance: 11.08 mi

Speed: 12.1 / 20.2 mph

Cadence: N/A

HR: 180/189 bpm

Saturday: took the day off, i think. this is what i get for not updating right away.

Friday: woke up late. Supposed to be spinning today, but I switched to another longer endurance ride. it took forever to get out the door. probably for good reason. I had to fight for every inch of road today, including almost getting thrown under a fuel oil truck on the way out and a car being towed by another car on the way back.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/58682231

Time: 2:45:45

Distance: 51.60mi

Speed: 18.7/34.6mph

Cadence: 103/141rpm

HR: 160/188bpm

NP/IF: 173W/0.837

Thursday: moderate endurance day. Didn't do anything. I had to hump 300 turkeys around at work today. I think i might have pulled something. went home and sacked out.

Wednesday: supposed to be my long endurance day. unfortunately, it was very rainy all day. I walked for about an hour in the rain and at night rode the rollers for a half hour.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/58553757

Tuesday: short endurance day. did 3 hours of bouldering. definitely a workout.

Monday: rest day. rested. so far so good.

2011: A Look Ahead

Alright, well first off, I guess this isn't really a look ahead since apparently this is my first week of the 2011 season. Basically, I just wanted to post my goals for the upcoming season and talk about my A races.

Goals:

1:16.5 kilo - I raised this up from my 1:15 kilo from last year, because quite frankly I think that was a little too optimistic.

Top 5 opening week and states - Self explanatory, should be doable.

Top 10 cat 4 road race - only 3 cat 5 races left. I can do this...

As for the A races, same as last year: opening weekend at the track and states. I'm also tempted to try racing the tour of the battenkill this year, but that's a bit of the opposite end of the spectrum from the training for the track. time will tell.

2010.50 - Part II: Season in review

I figure I should do something like this, so lets see. I'll start with my goals that I set in my 2010 Annual Training Plan:

1- 1:15 kilo

2- Top 10 Opening Weekend

3- Top 10 Cat 4 road race

So, how did we do? My best kilo was a 1:17.94, so there goes that one.

I was 6th overall at opening weekend. That's 1 and 1

Finally, well...I'm still a cat 5 on the road, so the last goal isn't even close to being passed.

In this light, my season was honestly pretty terrible. however, I still think all in all, this season ended well.

Here's the highlights:

-Fastest kilo at opening weekend

-6th overall at opening weekend

-3rd overall in the twilight track series

-4 2nd places at state championships (kilo, points, team sprint, omnium)

So all in all, i'm pleased and hope to continue to grow next season.

2010.50 - Gettin' ready for next season

Holy crap. As you might have noticed, I haven't been paying any attention to my training plan anymore, so it comes as quite a suprise that we're on week 50 now. tomorrow is week 51! In two weeks my 2010 season will be over! wow!

I've been working on doing some power testing and getting my ATP set up for next season. I'll post when the ATP is done, but here's how the power testing has been going:

Sunday: Did a graded threshold test today. Here's the setup: starting at 100W, increase by 20W every minute until the power level cannot be maintained. Looking at the data real quick, it looks like my LTHR is still around 175, with a FTP between 240 and 260W. One interesting trend that I noticed is that the final test levels became harder much quicker than the last time I tested. I wonder if this means I did not warm up as thoroughly as last time. Alternately, the last test I did used speed in 1mph increases instead of power, so maybe a 1mph increase is less intensive than a 20W increase. Here's the gconnect linky: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/56784834

hopefully I can do some different testing soon to help me get some better numbers.