Ryan D Training Diary

Week ended 2/12

2012-02-16T19:49:00.000-08:00

This was a rest week so tried to take it easier.

Monday weights were with low weight. Had a knee twinge so I stopped it all. Tried to focus on stretching leg muscles out.
Tue was a ride with Greg that was actually kind of harder for a rest week. 6x neighborhood hills and little extra mileage.
Wed was a TT race indoor and I was hoping for a good show. I felt rough and fought Martin for a good bit of it and did finish with 348 avg but was ragged. Second one was worse - this seems to be a bad trend of mine!
Overall not happy with it. Just slightly better than 5 weeks prior.
Took it easy on the Friday version of the over under. Still tired but not bad.
It was all OK though on a tough solo ride Sunday. 2x up squak and standing felt great. needed a new cassette though after putting new chain on. Then did zoo climb and it felt good too. Just under 4 hours and 3000KJ ride and body felt great other than some normal soreness in lower back from sitting that long.

Bigger news was recovery meal was simple and healthy and next morning I felt super. Unreal.

Week ended 2/2

2012-02-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

Pretty good week overall in terms of good sensations for most of it.

Monday weights - back up to some heavier weights and few reps following the lighter week prior.
The one leg presses felt like they were zeroing in on the gluts really well.
Tuesday - overslept and missed the alarm to ride with Greg. Wasn't feeling bad, not sure what happened. Did a truncated couple climbs up Vol park on way in, then a hard commute home trying to really blast up Dexter which seemed to work if strava is anything to go on.
Wed indoor was 2x20 and they have never felt so easy.340-350 on the LT, and slowing down on purpose to try to drive more watts out of it and keep avg at or above Martin's.
Thur weights again hard, a new PR on squat of 225lbs at 8 reps.
Friday - it kinda came unwound with a very hard 4x8 workout at Cycle U. Tried to keep it up like Wed, and probably dialed it too far ahead to keep up with Martin (at that point 345) so back to 340 and mentally very difficult to keep the workout going let alone competitive. I gave back a lot of average to Martin but noticed that watts/kg did NOT decline from Wed at 3.3 per computrainer but 3.45 per powertap. That performance shows a nice upward progression from November and a full 15% higher (roughly 3.0 watts/kg) for the same time last year. Why? I think weights are the difference.
Saturday was heroic weather here and I rode later, catching a bit of Cycle U clinic first then 6x neighborhood hills. A bit on the easier side so call it rest week rides start and other then hard test Wed nothing very hard till next Sunday am.

Week ended 1/28

2012-01-31T15:24:00.000-08:00

Back to more normal training this week. Looked like this:

Monday Weights - little lower weight since off the week before.
Tuesday - ?? I think I rode with Greg and did hills. Pretty sure anyway.
Wednesday - 2x20s ice at Cycle U - starting to feel a little uptick in the power production this week. Rode it at 330 TH and finished higher. Hitting higher watt avg versus my two reference riders Greg and Martin. Hit 3.3 W/Kg avg for the workout.
Thursday Weights - fine
Friday - back to the 8x hills workout and good sensations from Wed continued.
Sunday - shit weather but since I feel a little late to the endurance rides party I resolved to go out regardless. Fortunately for me Martin opted to join although he did regret it. For me it was a perfect training ride. Even though it rained throughout, and I flatted the rear wheel, and power meter battery was fading, it was a perfect training ride as far as I'm concerned - about 3.5 hours with a couple good climbs and I was fresh enough for all phases. Not totally destroyed later at home either.

2012-01-24T12:51:00.000-08:00

Week ended 1/21
This was the snow week in Seattle, shut everything down pretty much

I did Monday 2 indoor sessions with Martin and Dean (and Laura). Felt much better than the week before.

Nothing Tuesday -would have been weights.
Wed - the ICE indoor 2x20s on the climb. Again fine sensations in the legs.
Thur nothing - would have been weights.
Friday- the ICE 40 minute interval with the hard climbs - the one that broke me a week earlier. Turns out station 4 at the U doesn't have the same resistance punch as #5 so it was too easy of a workout. Which I could empircally prove out based on compare the work file from Monday. Lower watts average, lower heartrate average, lower perceived effort et cetera.
Sunday I rode for 3 hours solo, on somewhat recovered roads. Had to route change a couple times but all in all a good endurance ride.

So no weights and no bike commute - resulted in fresher legs Sunday and I could have gone harder but chose not to.

Tough week indoors!

2012-01-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

So back to normal workouts at Cycle U and it was not a stellar week.

I think I'm exercising enough now that I need to start drinking more than just water in the workout - I struggled on the 2x20s on Wed and felt like I was bonking on the way into work. We stopped at Whole Paycheck for hot breakfast brunch and that was awesome. Hard to get warm though as its been in the low 30s in the mornings.

But before the bonk I rode the first 20 just fine, almost too easy at 320, so I upped it to 330 for second half, and while I finished it it was a lot harder.

Then today we tried a little harder workout - basically 40 mins at 90% threshold with several 'overs', in some cases to 120%. I dialed back TH to 310, but couldnt manage the second to last hill and had to dial it way down to 278 or something. Avg watts/kg in the end was not that far off of Martin so all was not lost.

yesterday in the weight room I continued with a dialed back squat weight of 90 plus bar and then a short set of 110 plus bar to try to get good movement. Then the seated press with one leg at about 120lbs REALLY seemed to zero in on the gluts which are very sore today.

I plan to increase volume starting this Sunday - hope snow holds off. And I hope these workouts feel better next week or else.

Computrainer TT races

2012-01-05T11:24:00.000-08:00

We decided to hold the indoor tt course as our Wednesday workout. I had ridden 2+ hrs the day before, endurance hills. Weights on higher weight on Monday. Hills on the bike for just an hour on Sunday.

So probably came into it a little taxed but felt reasonable as we started the first one. Got distracted because Martin could not get his setup to work - a cable had gotten dorked. Not again! But pushed hard - too hard when i saw the watts north of 450. Tried to settle into a rythym but its a little hard when you are leading the race from the gun. I couldn't quite put much of a visible gap on the rest. Hung in there, remembering to push on the crests, flats and down hills. Jammed hard on the final hill and put in a sub 15 mins time for the first time ever (but i didn't do these last year at all). Said avg watts of 355.

Then about 7 mins of recovery and we started again - this time i knew Martin is better prepared with no fuss at the beginning. I'm a little slow getting clicked in and it feels harder the second time - I went too hard the first time obviously. Held on and sloooooowly passed people until it was just Martin and Greg ahead and we were separating from the rest.

I'd catchup to Martin, like 50 feet away and then he'd slowly surge and I'd go back to 200 feet - but I had a suspicion I could get him at the end if I could keep it close. I knew I had him when his speed dropped on the flats. It was a suffering for sure but then we're close to the final kick up and I gunned it and then was gassed but trying to get the pedals over to finish it behind Greg.

Then I wanted to puke and almost did. I did worse split wise but the average of the two power nums were still better than Greg's.

12/29 weights change up

2011-12-29T09:20:00.000-08:00

Greg thinks I've been doing too many reps, contrary to Strength Training for Cyclists so today I mixed it up.

1x10 reps squat form with bar and no weight, low enough to hit butt on bench
2x10 squats with 225lbs (2 45lbs plates per side!!)
2x10 lunge 40lbs barbells
1x10 deadlift 95lbs
2x10 seated leg press 260, 280lbs
some calf raises with that
3x10 isolated legs and 40 lbs leg lift machine
2x7 50lbs isolated legs hamstring machine
115lbs pec machine

week ended 12/24

2011-12-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

good block of training this week:

Monday and Thursday weights:
squats
lunges
leg press
calf raise
quad machine
hamstring machine
on Thursday I tried 10x deadlifts with bar plus 20 lbs.

Tue afternoon we did 2.5hrs ride, a little harder than I wanted pace-wise, pretty fatigued and bonking towards end, had to stretch back out but it recovered well. 10 hrs sleep that night.

Wed/Friday indoor workouts with 2x20s and then 5x8s vo2s today.

Not great rest last night due to too much red wine and racoon noises in the roof.

Issaquah plateu team ride

2011-12-10T15:16:00.001-08:00

Rallied to the team ride even though legs were heavy from two days lifting and two days indoor training with commute. Mild chest cold continues but is fairly mild. Ski gloves and bundled up but stayed warm enough. Perpetuem in the bottles and sandwich and larabar.

Hooked up with Lane on the way to Leschi then about nine of us or so headed to Issaquah. Nice moderate easy pace, tiny bit spirited a couple times but nothing too major. By the time we found a potty break for some of the lads it was 10am and time for me to turn around.

Tony and Lane joined me for a steady pace back to Leschi except for the part where you climb Newport Way for the long stretch. Lane was drilling it at a pace which was 350+ watts for me, while not impossible was certainly a little harder than I was psychologically wanting to go. Tony held on too which was great.

Made it to Gretchen's for a mocha at just before 11:30 and home there after - right on schedule.

Power tap turned off at leschi so I missed what I assume was about 200KJ of the ride. Will call it 2200KJ total.

8x hills Cycle U

2011-12-09T18:55:00.001-08:00

Led the second indoor class this week and we picked a little more vo2 kind of workout with 8x hills and four blocks at tempo pace. Felt great even though been fighting a mild chest cold. Held back to not over do it.

831KJ, used 320 FTP.

5 of us there.

weights

2011-12-08T19:07:00.000-08:00

same as monday

weight is about 171 now

2x20 controlled over unders

2011-12-07T19:01:00.000-08:00

Same as first workout the week before when we got trained on the system at Cycle U. Nice work out with a lot of variation on the work to keep it fresh. Dead even performance with the week before. FTP was 331 and KJ overall was 685KJ.

8 of us from the team - full house!

weights

2011-12-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

back to normal weight routine - more reps than real heavy weights

3x20 squats, about 135lbs
3x20 lunges, 30lb barbells
leg press 180lbs 3x40
leg extends 3x40 50 lbs
leg curls 3x40 50lbs

2x20s indoor

2011-12-04T19:03:00.000-08:00

no weekend ride so I did 2x20s in the garage. Managed 296watts and 292 watts. total work was not very different from Feb 23 of last year, last 2x20 before first major race - so that seems like a good indicator.

Cycle U 2x20s

2011-12-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

Did the ICE class with Ian to learn the system for FareStart use. Did a nice controlled over under. Did it again the following week with the same results.

2x20 and weights

2011-11-28T10:23:00.001-08:00

Emerged from Thanksgiving with no exercise over the week except a legs session on Wed am. And a zombie run on Friday.

Did a 2x20 on Sunday morning and finally got heartrate strap working again. Up in 180s towards the end. yikes. Might have been 300 first session and certainly worse on second - 250-275. Not trying to kill it right now!

Got back to weightroom today for a repeat of last week reps and weights. Was good. Had to roll my back out a lot on the roller over Tgiving I think because of weight on upper back doing squats. Everything feels great today. And I picked up a couple pounds over the break to 171lbs.

weights

2011-11-21T09:39:00.001-08:00

Today I raised the weights on all the exercises pretty much.

Squats (3x20)
Lunges (3x20)
Leg press (3x40)
Calf press (3x50?)
Pec (3x10)
Hamstring machine (3x40)

Weight came in just under 170lbs.

I did a little run yesterday but only lasted a measly 16 minutes.

weight room twice this week

2011-11-18T08:02:00.001-08:00

After hitting the weights once last week, and getting that normal "holy-cow-i-am-sore" feeling the day after. I went back in twice this week. Same routine but moving up the weight a little bit.

squats
lunges
leg press
leg press calf raise
quad machine
hamstring machine
pec machine

also noticed a pickup in my on weight, 166 Tuesday, 168 today. Lots of rich food last couple days....

The MFG season end party at Hale's was a lot of fun and those guys worked really hard to put that series on. I had a blast in my 4 races and look forward to really contesting the series next year. Would like to see our team support a race too.

Back to the weight room

2011-11-11T08:22:00.001-08:00

I didn't lift weights at all last year. After resolving my lower back issues through better core and posture, and seeing the results of some others who have been lifting, I decided it was time to get back into the weight room. What sealed it was a lunch with Dave Hecht who obviously got it done this year.

He mentioned that weights are a key part of what he does in the fall/winter and I decided to emulate his program. So I reupped at the YMCA and did just one day this week so as to keep some freshness for MFG final race this Sunday at Woodland Park. Dave does a routine based on a two minute timer, do the reps for two mins then switch to the accompanying exercise for two mins then back. Trying to do two or three sets of three reps each.

I did:

Squats just the bar, then added 50 lbs later on
Lunges 10lb barbells
did two sets of three each on the 2mins cycle.

Then I moved to seated leg press, doing low weight, maybe 100lbs, and did 3 sets of 2 mins with the alternate excercise being calf extensions.

Then leg extension machine with very little weight, 20lbs? Doing these two minutes long was actually impossible but tried.

Final machine was hamstring curls and since none of the other exercises had really touched the hamms it was fine for three sets.

Wow - that really hurt the next day and day after. But feels like its exactly the kind of muscle firing I need to do.

ps - took a weight measurement and was surprised to be at 166 or so. really??

Many events all in one

2011-10-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

Since I'm really behind on this blog I'll try to sum up two cx races and training all at once.

Since the first CX race I've tried to ramp up the midweek training even though our original plan was only to work skills midweek and then just race. But Greg winning race 1 kinda changed his outlook. So twice a week we're trying to do some longer efforts like 20s and some shorter intense efforts like over/unders or hill climbs up Alder/Madrona. I like to do one seated, then again standing for 4x total.

MFG #3 North Bend. This was my second race and I was determined to do better pre and post holeshot in terms of establishing my area and passing rather than being passed. No call up for me but was able to jog up pretty good to third row - but my radar said the guys in front of me didn't look like the kind of guys I wanted to be near - not looking to be at the pointy end of the race by the end at all. Gun goes off and Dean has the right idea to be up the side - what was I thinking? In any event I was probably 25 wheels back heading into the first challenges of the off camber descent, hill climb then the climb most guys were running up. Much crashing behind me but I refused to yield my line to half-wheelers who tried to move by me. Ran up the hill first time, then resolved to ride it the last 5 times up - huge crowd cheering you on to do this - loved it. OK now I'm coming up on one of those guys I said I didn't want to be near and sure enough he tries to run me into the tape when I try to pass. Really? Lame. Just waited a spell then charged him and got around clean.

Caught Dean at this point and told him to get on my wheel. But lost track of him trying to move up and I guess I dropped him. I figured I passed 15 contenders and about 15 lapped riders. Turns out I finished 10th which was good improvement from first race. Using superfeet inserts resolved my arch pain. Many people complained about their backs on the washboardy nature of the course but I didn't have any issues. Really pleased to catch and pass Jake Ricker. He won the following week! Mistake wise I probably laid the bike down 4 or 5 times. Wasn't happy with a couple final barriers but no major errors other than a bad start.

MFG #4 was at Marymoor. A little cooler than earlier but a nice day overall.

Greg is in series lead so our plan was to target the other sbux guy so he can handle leading sbux guy himself. Even worse placing for this long straightaway start - 5th or 6th row - and not on the edge like I said before was key - this was going bad fast. Resolved to move over after first couple pedal revolutions and get over just in time for hard left turn. All I could keep thinking was to be brutal about passing. Actually made pretty good progress in the first lap and got up to Dean and the guy we were targeting. I was running about 38 psi in rear and 35 psi up front. Opted for a little more in the rear to avoid flatting, but knew it could cost me some traction. On the warmup lap the remount after the stairs was frightful! Off camber falling away - so I resolved to run it down on the first lap, and then each lap thereafter work a little hard to get to the very top where there was a flattish section to remount there. Later I saw Lane S remount smooth as butter on the off camber part - something to keep practicing! Played cat/mouse with the Dean/Sbux pair until about lap 3 to go and burned it passed them feeling good. Caught up to Nick with the handlebar stache - nice! Shadowed him for about a lap and coming up on 2 to go I burned passed him on the long straight away - he says "nice work!" really? how very cool of him! Next up is another unregistered guy, I burn him on the midway section and now I'm in 6th place! Whoo hoo! Last couple laps I think I'm being clever by unclipping on the really tight turns, you know, in case the bike slips out, I should be able to recover quick without putting the bike down. Well - coming to the last 180 degree turn before 1 lap to go I'm flying and do my trick and boom flat on my back in the middle of the course. Not hurt but it allows those two guys to get by me, as I get back up to speed I think these things are hard to recover from - and that you can't make any mistakes like that in top 10 of the race. I try but can't seem to reel the two back in over the last lap. 300 meters to go and Dean catches up to me. I'm cool with him getting by and pushing hard to line. Had it been anyone else I would have contested it harder. We finish 8th and 9th but I know I had 6th but for the mistake.

Pain train in the rain, was it in vain?

2011-09-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

We trained in the rain today. I have full lights on the cx rig with road wheels and tires but no fenders. That is a story for when I'm ready to talk about my rain bike breaking for no reason last week.

Started too strong which means I couldn't hold the pace and Greg passed and dropped me for most of the 20 mins effort. Later he said it was a 324 pp for the 20 mins so that's a little better but still noone likes to be dropped.

It was dark and very wet and I did lose traction a few times.

I also jogged yesterday for 30 mins - fun!

MFG #2 Lake Sammamish St park

2011-09-18T12:25:00.000-07:00

Had my first cx race today and it was a blast. Greg had won his first time out on cx a week prior, and rode his mtn bike 6 hours the day before so I thought I'd have a good shot at putting up a good result at the course which looked relatively tame and flat. Even the flyover which was in place for the day before wasn't going to be used.

We got warmed up and I lowered psi from test laps from 40 to 38 or so. Realized only dorks use waterbottle cages so I left my bottle at the tent at least. Good thing I took the pie plate off!

We had Tim W., Dean, Greg, Andrew and myself. We all got front row spots then they did callups. We still started in good place which was important as there were 80 competitors!!

Long sprint to open it up to first turn was fine - I could hold 5th wheel relatively easily. Once we hit the junk after the turn though it got quickly into a knife fight. I, trying to hit the bumps and turn 'safely' meant slower relative to some guys trying hard to charge up in position and one of them popped me pretty good shouldering by. Hello, welcome to CX big boy!

Settled down and hit the sand pits resolved to run them each time and did. Goal was not to lose it here but probably wasn't setting any landspeed records. All true. Then I could gas it on the grass and back around to barriers. Of 5 laps I messed up the barriers once, so not bad I guess but it was a mental lapse, lost some momentum and 3/4 spots there. Lost sight/connection to the Greg group about 1.5 laps in and just resolved to latch and pass guys here and there.

Thanks to Lane S. who said to go practice a hundred dismount remounts on grass - it really helped and I don't fear the 'hand of God' jump back on the machine now when remounting.

Had a soft like kitty guy in my sights on last lap but took a poor line through barrier and go popped by a dude coming inside of me. Rattled my focus for a half step, long enough to lose the connection and finished behind them both.

I called him out about it afterward and he explained it very matter-of-factly so I decided it was just a good race tactic and not dirty pool. Finished 18th out of 80 or so and stayed upright throughout.

Looking forward to #3! Greg leads the series right now too.

2011 Masters National Road Race

2011-09-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

The big enchilada in Bend, Oregon happened on September 4th of this year.

I had a nice buildup of training, much of it solo, and seemed to be progressing well with a focus on shorter duration higher intensity power. Lots of 4 and 6 mins intervals. Hill climbing, with a few sessions out to Cougar mountain.

I stayed healthy and had good diet and rest. I chose to race once in the buildup at Boat St and while I felt good I didn't get a good result but rather another crash (taking RC out) so I decided to skip any other races in the buildup. Dave Hecht gave me some pointers for that week leading up the big day and I followed it well. Super pre race dinner with lots of carbs and protein the night before. Had a great opener ride with Jeff, Greg, Suzie and Olivier from the team on the Saturday before. I did 7 opener efforts and felt ready to go.

Cindy dropped me at the s/f and I had time to get warmed up on trainer and all my stuff organized. Rode on the road for last warm up to make sure tubulars and everything were dialed in. Went great. Then we got the word that the start was pushed an hour later. Sat down in the grass and had a nice impromptu Seattle meeting of riders from Audi, Garage and FareStart.

Time to go - got a mid pack place at start and was happy to see Phil Miller officiating. Nice fist bump from Jeff and we're off. A little sketchy in the neutral start and I'm sliding back - try to rectify this but moving up is hard. Race is on and we get the whole road - very pro! Get in the wind to move up and most everyone has the same idea. We start our 3/4s of a lap on downhill to flat - so everyone is jonesing to stay up. But no crashes that I saw. Bike feels great - we elected to take 3 bottles each for the heat and its a good thing because its now about 93 degrees to go with 3,100 ft above sea level.

We know we have to be towards the front before the steep pitch so I move up hard on the first real climb and notice that I'm passing the Joe Holmes. Nice. I wonder if he thinks to himself "who is this strong looking dude from Seattle?" Does he know I have beaten Logan Owen? Probably not.

Now we are in feed zone and the pace never really drops off - you have to be vigilant to move up - Greg is up in front quarter and has been there from the get go unlike Jeff and I. I've had to exert to get to the front quarter. We hit the steep pitch (we'll do it three times total) and I feel pretty good. Probably 450-550 watts but seated and it feels fine.

Then things go sideways - I think maybe they will let up a little? But they don't, they keep hammering. Now I'm hot, my drink is too sickly sweet and I feel a rime of crust around my lips. Gaps are opening everywhere. Greg says "GO Ryan!?!" I and I can't go any any harder. Jeff is there. I try to find the wheel and hold on for dear life. Up first stair step, brief respite, then hard again. Now Ian Tubbs is there driving the pace, another stair step you can see for a long time. Agony. We're over and slightly regrouped. No Greg. I have pure water in my third bottle in my jersey but have to think about how to pull it out. Disoriented from the effort. Pull it out but rats its the hard right hand turn and I have my hands full!

I try to hold the large bottle in my teeth and the small in my hand and negotiate the turn with braking with one hand and nearly spear into the roundabout. I briefly consider bunny hopping it but wisely choose not to and swing wide left, barely keeping it up and then sprint hard to reintegrate with the the now consolidated chase group including Jeff.

We're back to the downhill part now so its much easier and being in the small group is nice. Feels safer. We can see the main pack of 44 or so up ahead but quickly disabuse ourselves of bridging for the following climb would surely blow us up. Jeff asks what I'm going to do. I say take it one pedal at a time. I want desperately to quit the race. We roll through feed zone and Jeff passes up a bottle from a friend but I greedily take it and its sweet pure water. Toss it back. THANKS!

I'm using every mental trick I can to not give up and now convince myself if I can get to the roundabout (past the climb) one more time I can finish the race without quitting. It feels like we climb a little bit slower thank goodness but its not till the top, the second stair step that I get unhitched from the group. There is only a moto behind me. I joked earlier to Jeff that we were in the grouppetto simply wanting to finish the race.

Now I'm solo - lanterne rouge? Who knows. Jeff turns around and says something and I wave him off. I'm cooked. Why couldn't I go just a little harder to regroup and ride with the draft until final climb? I'll never know.

It was strangely quiet riding solo on the final lap. Last time up steep pitch it felt like all my leg muscles were cramping at once even though I had been taking 2 endurolytes each lap. I had been consistently hitting gel flask too. I asked the feed zone and got one more charity water and I swear it was the best thing I had ever tasted. Did I mention the suffering? I never suffered so bad on the bike as that last lap. It was only 2 hours on the machine??WTF? But lower back, legs everything was suffering. My only consolation was I had promised myself that I was going to go down to this race and suffer for 2 hours and at least that part was coming true.

I knew the next had probably started but never saw them until the second stair step when the procession finally passed me. I finished 72nd overall with a time of roughly 2hrs 20 minutes for about 55 miles of riding. The elevation gain section starting with the feed zone was roughly 16 minutes of hard climbing.

When I later reviewed some strava files, the power spikes in the winner and podium guys were pretty impressive (as in 1100, 990, 900) and AFTER the steep pitch!! But they slowed down each lap as did I. Jeff ran into some mechanical difficulty but largely finished with that follow group at roughly 10 mins off the winning time. I finished another 12 minutes back or 22 minutes of the winning time. Which surprised me given how bad I felt and how slow it seemed like I climbed the last time.

The race was tough because of the heat and elevation, but especially because of the talent pool. Racing against guys who consider themselves capable of competing for a national championship is eye opening. I don't think they make the trip unless they are feeling pretty good. The winner has duked it out with Dan Martin several times and he is a stud. Dan finished eighth by the way.

Looking at the results differently, I was happy to be 2nd in terms of the FareStart team, Jeff rode really strong in my opinion - it was good to see. I'm sorry that Greg got cut by officials.

My finish was good for 8th among riders from Seattle, WA and 11th for WA State riders. There were 114 guys on the start list but probably 20-30 didn't show to race. Given my feelings that day I was happy just to finish but had thought top 10 was realistic. Next year? Maybe...

ps - We stopped for Da Kine shaved ice and that stuff was totally awesome.
pps - we saw Olivier's family at Smith Rock the next day and that was a cool side trip too.

July & August training

2011-08-30T11:47:00.001-07:00

I have trained significantly for masters nationals. Over 48,000KJ. I raced Boat Street and felt great but deteriorating weather and poor choice of tyre pressure conspired to wipe me out with 3 laps to go and cause a teammate to break a collarbone.

Let's see how masters nats goes - 113 competitors in my category.

Pacific Raceways redux

2011-06-28T16:36:00.000-07:00

It's great to be really racing again! That stuff I was doing before was technically racing but not truly having the fitness to be a protagonist was frustrating. I had a good bit of training between last weeks PR and this week's so its all starting to come back together.

We had 6 guys in the masters field, which was a little smaller due to the course selection of counter clockwise on "s" turns, so descending the turns and climbing the less-steep hill back to main track. Same time frame, about 1 hr 10 mins or roughly 12 laps.

Unremarkable warmup but when the gun went off I decided I would too, thinking that with 5 teammates in the bunch, all more fit than I, we could have some fun sending counter after counter up the road. So I took off and noone came with, it felt great as the start of most races usually do, and I was happy to hit the turns off the front to take my own lines and speed down them. Rory sends the women who race in the masters field down the escape route to meet up with the men after they take the s turns, so I met up with them and they shouted some encouragement about being off the front which I appreciated.

This route up the hill is easier in my opinion, or my fitness moved up a notch from last week - who knows, in any event it was easier. But I was reeled back by this strong Old Town dude who brought stuff back all night long. He had Steve O on his wheel so we had a nice little move but either I was too slow or the pack was hot to bring it back as we got reeled back in pretty quick.

Bit ho hum there for a few laps till first prime when a very nice group got off, about 6-7 guys with us have 3 of the guys, Kauper, Martin and Hecht. I let the surge fade as second wheel but then Old Town was back and hell if he didn't put in one hell of a pull into the wind for a good 7-8 minutes to pin them back. I recall reading 387 watts in his draft for petes sake.

So more uneventful action other than there would be this awesome surge following the descent where you had to absolutely drill it to hold the wheel, then dawdling, then up the hill half-heartedly. Somewhere in there Martin got off with Nikos from Garage and they dangled from a few laps tantalizingly close, but could not be pulled back, I also noticed that our group had whittled from small start to select group of fit guys all riding VERY safe except for one dude in a SRAM kit who nearly wiped another UR out but for some quick thinking on his part. No crashes and by the end the s turns felt downright pedestrian. Helped that it stayed dry the whole time too.

So with about 3-4 laps to go I started beating myself up that I should be attacking now, why was I sitting in? Sure I was a little tired but so must be everyone else. So it was a relief when Greg finally said that with 2 laps to go we need to start attacking one after another. I moved up hard on inside on the climb to 5th wheel, then as we approach finish line I went moderately hard (not my true attack which is a real hard explode) because there wasn't much room to work with. As I passed lead guy - Old Town again, he moved into me but I just kind of shoulder'd past him and was clear and put my head down through curve and started to beat into the wind. They had let me go and it wasn't a ton of space but I was happy that they had to come and get me or lose 3rd place. I held it till the climb again and got caught with just over one lap to go. Fought hard to grab the last wheel but on the flats I recovered fairly quick, enough to see Dean make a little acceleration ( where was my counter guys???). I was a little hot so I moved back up to 3rd wheel where Greg said to pull hard for someone so I pulled to turn 2 or so and then faded and just pack finished it in.

I remember being really happy I made the move with 1 to go - so I was happy with the race. Martin won! And generously paid for gas which was nice. We rallied carpools thanks to Jeff and Jed and tried to eat at Pied Piper but their kitchen was closed. We went to Pies and Pints and had some of the slowest service since Corpus Christi, TX.

1400 KJ, so 200 more than week before, and a ton more surges. 10 mins power was at personal best and power curve in general was more like where it needs to be.

Pacific Raceways

2011-06-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

First time down this year. In the van were Martin, Greg and Dean J. Escape route clockwise with s turns - a real nice course. Oh to have a bit more fitness right now! Masters field was tough group and fast from the start shedding many non-fit or non-climbing folk early as in 2 or 3 laps in of the 13 total.

I felt better up the hill than I expected and found I could move up fairly easily. I did have powertap and it looks like the trips up the hill were 500watts for about a minute each.

I faded off Martin when he surged and allowed him to get clear and he did the rest staying away for 5-6 laps just getting caught at the end.

Unfortunately Dave H crashed for second time in 10 days and must be very frustrated right now.

I watched the rest of podium ride away on last lap but could not answer it, yet. Good to finish with the reduce field and recovery was fine. 1200KJ overall, similar but slightly lower than last PR I did last August.

3x15s

2011-06-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

My headunit crapped out the battery and so I had no data for this ride unfortunately. Tried to emulate the hard rides of last spring with Justin where I set some high power marks not to be repeated later in the year. Greg came along and did a little different workout.

He is in a faster mode right now which is to be expected but is still a little hard. It's good training though and I was unable to catch him at several points.

6x hills in city

2011-06-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

After Capital, I got on an airplane and attended a conference for aquarium cfo's in Corpus Christi, Texas. It was too hot and humid to do much exercise so I didn't do any.

When I got back in the saddle Thursday morning I was anxious to ride again decided to go hard on Friday by doing the in city hills of 3x alder and 3x madrona.

Felt good, legs coming around maybe, and happy that each Alder effort was a little higher watts than the prior ones.1200KJ

Capital Stage Race - TT#2 & Crit #3.

2011-06-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Friday was a great day, Saturday was a little less so.

I followed Dave's advice - for a short TT do a long warm up. For a long TT do a short warmup. I warmed up over an hour for the short 3.6 miles, borrowed Greg's disc, misplaced my helment but used another and felt OK on the course but lack of aero probably cost me 15-25 secs. Lack of fitness probably another 15-25. Put that together and I was just over a minute off the winning time. I think I can do better than that with training and equipment so that sucked. Glad Morgan won - great form right now.

Greg should have put more time in me than he did. Think he was less than 20 secs faster than me.

Then we had the long wait from 1145, till crit start at almost 8pm. Next time we need to stay in the hotel for both nights, chilling in the park for a whole day seemed like a waste of time to me.

At the crit start I was feeling good, not anxious, we'd had another good warmup, and when you hang with Dave it means you are always within sight of a porta-potty.

But the pace off the gun was blistering on the Capitol course, and I had trouble heading up the hill with the gang, falling farther and farther back until I got spat out and rode 5 or 6 laps on my own before getting cut. I lasted 25 of the 50 minutes and was pulled for the first time in race career. It was at that moment that I concluded that at 10 weeks out from the collarbone break I was probably pushing my return to racing and should let the training build up before starting again. But had been torn about getting at least one close stage race in before season was over. Anyway I decided Sunday would be counterproductive and would not do it. I changed and watched the end of the crit from turn 2 when during final lap I heard that crashing metallic sound of someone going down hard.

Went down to investigate and it was Dave H who had smashed into the barrier. He was being immobilized by EMTs when I got there and couldn't remember how he had gotten to the race. Many racers know Dave and were huddled around hoping to help in some way. We gathered up his stuff and loaded it into his car while he rode ambulance to ER in Olympia. I met him there after I had everything together and staff were cool there. We needed about 4 hours there before we could check out and head back to Seattle. Got to bed at a little after 2AM.

He is better and raced again the following Tuesday at PR.

Capital Stage Race - RR#1

2011-06-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

I signed up for masters but field size kept shrinking so jumped ship to cat 3s. Wasn't terribly positive heading into the race as preparation was far from ideal with the sciatica and lack of focussed training. It didn't help that I had no real TT option so was going to ride road bike for that. But first stage first, we did a nice loop for 70 miles or so total. Wasn't so bad sitting in, bike and weather were nice.

I was happy with hydration and nutrition before and during the race. Made one sincere effort to bridge up to a move including Morgan C and some others and it really took a toll. Thought I was done but held on up the little power climb and recovered enough to stay on the group. Towards last lap, Ryan G said he was cramping and wanted to pull me/us in. So got behind him, then got Jeff D in and we held this little train for most of last lap and when 200M were left I got a little swarmed but Tony slotted right in behind Jeff and won field sprint.

Team raced well - was in or initiated every break. Dave H was in winning break and won the race. Only bad news was losing Steve O early on and he bailed for rest of race.

My body felt great - no issues other than simply not enough fitness. Nice dinner at Anthony's with most of the team. Roomed with Dave H in a skanky hotel.

SMS intervals

2011-06-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

Met up with Greg and Martin and did the nice interval set thats 3x 2 mins, 6x1.5 mins and a few shorties. Faded a little and had to take down the threshold setting to 320 I think but held it thereafter. Martin and Greg were each stronger in terms of total work completed. Martin held 350 threshold and raised that toward the end.

2x Cougar

2011-06-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

Monday following Ballard I got out alone on race bike and did 2x Cougar, Lakemont route then down zoo and up Montreux route. Then in to work. Nice day - felt OK but sluggish on the climbs, like legs still coming around. Just under 2100KJ.

Ballard Crit 2011

2011-06-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

Great to get back on the horse, nine weeks after the collarbone break I was racing again on a beautiful day in Seattle. Perhaps a bit early fitness wise but the nice weather is so rarely here that I had to do it.

Rode to the race with RC, Greg and Martin - that is always a nice treat. Martin had his new Madfiber wheels which looked really cool. Brand new tires too - must have felt great. For some reason I brought a ton of crap in my backpack and really didn't like riding with all the weight. We had a good warmup and lined up well. Big field with 74 cats.

We went hard first few laps and I was feeling good on the edges of the corners but nervous in the middle with guys on either side but they rode like the masters I know and love - nice and smooth, only one guy in a De Laurenti kit made some bad choices, I wonder if its the guy Martin mentioned in his report?

The acceleration out of turn four and up the front straight was hard, sitting or standing both seemed tough and it was difficult to move up until just before the turn when guys slowed down, or on the back stretch. I tried not to get overly mental and think myself out of the race and at one point about halfway through was feeling OK and moved way up to 4th or 5th wheel but just couldn't easily maintain it like last year. Fitness definately has a way to go to get to the top tier again.

Martin has been registering higher KJ at the SMS workouts we do, and I have been higher than some other teammates. I wondered how it would translate and it did kind of as I expected, Martin had a much easier time holding it up front a took a prime - much like I did on this race last year. I stayed in the race but was NOT a protagonist at all, sort of how I expected.

But it was good to get the race in. Big props to the cheering crew who came out, my sister Kelli, Cindy and the boys, Jeff & Julie and Brian & Robin. We had a nice pic nic later on at Gasworks park.

Good pics are here.By Brian Snyder

Team ride Sno Falls

2011-05-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

Met up with several teammates in Leschi for a ride to Snoqualmie Falls. I knew the full 85 miles would be too much distance and intensity considering I have done zero endurance rides for what is now the eight week anniversary of the collarbone break.

And the recent unpleasantness of the last 10 days with the back and sciatica weighed heavy on the mind. So therefore it is most pleasing to say unreservedly:

I HAVE THE GOOD SENSATIONS IN THE LEGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And really the good sensations are in the lower back which has never felt like this on a ride in a long time. I'm convinced its the focus on the neutral spine and pelvic forward. Someone told me Herriot preaches this and for good measure! The only thing working hard was my leg muscles, the only fatigue I felt was in the leg muscles.

I went a little harder watts wise when with the group heading out, including one bridge effort I was happy with to pull back a frisky Owens/Eisen move outside of Factoria, but I felt the lack of training when the group motored up the snaky climb on 300th street on the way into Snoqualmie. I had to let them separate and then turned around before the town and headed back solo. 1300KJ to the turn, and I would burn another 1400KJ getting back solo including a little loop back to the library to collect a misplaced waterbottle. 66 miles total.

Food and drink was perfect and I never had any issues - pbj, bananna, gel, two bottles heed/perpetuem.

Turns out this was the 4th hardest ride I've down this year so that ain't bad.

Mobility plus healthcare - the bad news

2011-05-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

So my back was torqued again, Chiro adjusted me on Wed, but riding home I had pain in glut muscle I never had before.

I was already scheduled to see Chiro again Friday so went back and he diagnosed sciatica. Arg.

Neutral spine is the culprit I think. Too lax on posture sitting, standing and not rocking pelvis forward enough on the saddle of the bike.

Writing this about one week after the fact and maniacal focus on neutral spine at all times, stretching and light light riding just to work and now Friday I think I pulling through it. Nerve is inflammed and will take time to recede completely but 'nerve flossing' did help.

Broken collarbone? It feels fine now I think I train tomorrow Saturday 5/28 and the rehab is back on just in time for crit season.

pyramids sms

2011-05-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

day 3 in a row, did same work out as day before, power was down for me, back was starting to flare up.

I pushed through the workout which was probably a bad idea in hindsight. Had to ice back whole day thereafter and saw Chiro on Wednesday.

pyramids sms

2011-05-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

met up with Martin, running late due to 3yr old moving my wallet the little stinker.

so truncated workout, I got the big intervals in then had to bail.

2x20s SMS

2011-05-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

First time to do 2x20s at Becker's place. Little longer warmup than I usually do. Think I set it at 320, can't remember for sure. Broke 1000 KJ for the workout. First of three days back to back.

pyramids on LWB

2011-05-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

Greg Martin and I did pyramid workout on LWB, 4 mins, 2 mins 1 mins, 30 secs on with similar rests. Martin took most of these, I had to draft the majority of it. Was a good workout though.

Seattle Multisport random

2011-05-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

Coming to the end of these SMS workouts. Maybe one or two more weeks then I'd done and I think the session is over. It's a little different dynamic with the non racers there in the mornings at 6, I just can't use any of there performances as any kind of gage for the workout. Noone is over 250 watts threshold, even the guys, so they do their thing and I do mine. Today it was 310 threshold up to 350 at the end and I still left too much on the table. This interval session has the 2+ minutes ones at the back, and last week the second to last one (@320) shut me down so I wanted to get through the workout at 310 with no problems. But in hindsight I could have gone harder than that and it would have been fine.

So I rode to work as well and then back to ortho surgeon for what I hoped was last visit but he wants to do one more xray in 6 weeks to confirm full bone healing. It looks pretty good for 6 weeks and mobility is great but just to be sure. We discussed late May being a good time to race again.

So the 6-8 weeks the other racers quoted was pretty much right on. At 6 weeks right now.

Overall KJ on this workout was anemic at 740.

2x20s outside!

2011-05-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

Met up with Greg and RC for first post crash training ride OUTDOORS. Sweet. Rode cervelo and it was nice. It was light out and dry. Greg on tt bike.

We went to Mercer and I felt good up the steep hill and pushed it a little but drafted across the bridge and for most all of the down and then back intervals. Often I was reading 300 watts in the draft. Did a couple surges into the wind on way back and then challenged for the top of the hill, the one just before the end and then the final hill before the bridge and carried both. Nice!

It's easy to feel good when you ride in someones draft the whole time.

1300KJ which is not great for this ride but indicative of the drafting I'm sure.

Seattle Multisport random

2011-05-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

Today was third Tuesday back to SMS and I was hoping to feel better than week before when I went too hard too soon after being sick.

I did feel better on short rest from Sunday and beat the prior Tuesday mark of KJ with a 750, but got hammered on the second to last interval which was the longest one at 2 mins. Had to dial threshold down to finish it. So easy objective next week or Thursday is to hold constant wattage through the workout. Sunday I did 300 and today I tried but failed at 320.

Oh, and I rode there and to work and back - so that's another milestone post break. 5 weeks 2 days after the break I pulled that off.

intervals SMS

2011-05-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

Martin emailed me late yesterday about a workout today in the am. I said sure.

Rode Friday, did some hills with junior napping in the back yesterday and tested arm outside and then did these intervals today. All felt good. I rode at 300 watts whereas Martin rode at 350. He finished with more than 100KJ more work done for the session but I know I can't get it all back right away. I was fine with my 798KJ.

2x20 indoor

2011-04-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

Decided to rest another day, Thursday, and do a workout Friday morning. Chose 2x20s since its been a while, tried to settle on a lower wattage to not try to get everything back right away.

Held 258 and 257 for each one and it felt OK.Thats about 83% of a normal 2x20 at least as of late Feb where same setup yielded 311 avg.

Seattle Multisport random

2011-04-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

I went back to SMS after missing most of last week due to illness and fever, down for 3.5 days, man that really stank.

Probably should have taken another few days to recover before pushing it on the trainer but I did hit it at 350 watts threshold to start but dialled it back through the workout. Felt terrible and would have quit had I been alone. But I was with the group of nonracers so I couldn't bail like that. This lady next to me was riding at 150 watts threshold and when the hard bits came she'd go 38 mph. Life is like a box of chocolates. I think her total KJ was 250 by the end of the workout.

Mine was 845KJ.

Seattle Multisport random

2011-04-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

I went to SMS for first time since crash and jumped in a 6am class with Nelson. Felt better than expected and dialed threshold watts up to 350 or so by the end. Class full of nonracers on a random workout which at least had some intervals. Avg 100 rpm. Just under 700 KJ of work so not quite back to the old days just yet.

Nelson had a rough time and had to stop to pump ship.

Then later that day I felt fever come on and was terribly sick for the next 4 days. Lame!

But look forward to next Tuesday's workout and maybe start riding to work the week after. This is week 4 post crash.

1x10 and 1x15

2011-04-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

OK, first day of "real" training. Comes roughly 3 weeks after the break. I can hold the bars reasonably well now. Never did follow Gallaher's advice to zip tie the bars on the bars.

Was not trying to kill it. But to ease back into things. Some residual left knee soreness from the contusion. Kept wound covered for 21+ days and now am bandage free.

Went to Greggs and got new buckles for shoes - they were free so that's nice.

easy spin on trainer

2011-04-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

repeat from a week earlier, just trying to get a little sweat going

briefly back on bike

2011-04-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

I rode for 25-30 minutes on the trainer to say I did one week following the crash.

IVRR

2011-03-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

So obviously I've postponed blogging for going on three weeks now because I crashed hard at the start of this race and broke my collarbone and suffered some level 2 road rash.

Broke helmet, ripped clothing, but bike and wheels appear OK.

Somewhere/somehow there will be something good about this but for now its really just a pain in the butt.

Just before the crash...feeling great

12x 1.5 mins Seattle Multisport

2011-03-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Final workout at Seattle Multi for this deal. Man these are just fricking hard to do. Tired from hills but started out at 330 threshold setting and powered through first 4 or 5 OK, then dropped it to 320, then again to 310 which seemed to be the right setting. Willed it through the final 5 or 6. Last three versions of these workouts were sub 900 Kjs after I hit the high of 972.

Steve and Greg were there. Greg fixed the corrupted file which we inherited or it would have been game over. Steve not 100% nor was Greg.

Watched 127 hours which made me a little queasy, would have prefered a straight action flick or something.

6x hills

2011-03-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

Greg and I rallied at 6:30am to drive to Squak and do hill repeats on longer 10 plus minute climbs. The queen stage of Cherry has two short laps and three long laps, on the long laps are two climbs so we need to climb 6x.

We parked at that playfield area and warmed up for exactly 7 minutes before hitting the first approach on Squak, but it was good to get started climbing because while it was clear it was really pretty cold. I finally had my rebuilt rear wheel operating properly and communicating with the head unit so I sat on 350 watts generally for the most part. Could sit the whole thing and rolled back down from the top to meet Greg was going to do a lighter version because of Hawaii trip and having raced the day before.

Did the same approach second time, but lowered the time a little now that I was warmed up. Third approach was the third and then glad to be off that one. Cruised over and did Zoo approach first and man that is some steep stuff. Had some trouble keeping power up on the rollers but mustered through and up to towers. Rolled down through Montreux and then back up, THAT is a steep hummer after 4 earlier climbs. But recovered somewhat on the late rise and could really push it hard to Lakemont and then reasonable pace back up to the school. Then we went down to golf course road or whatever it is to the little parking lot there and came back up and to school for final time.

3 hours riding, 2300 KJ but body felt good including the back. No knee issues really.

2x 15s TT position

2011-03-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

Got aero bars on the litespeed to practice TT position. Did a little trainer session the night before to get used to it. Rolled rebuilt rear wheel but its not communicating with head unit.

Did MI down to east hill and back. Felt really good, went fairly hard. Will the back hold??

12x 1.5 mins Seattle Multisport

2011-03-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

By myself on this workout again. Felt better on the Cervelo knee-wise but this is getting to be a tougher workout to finish very well on. Suffered.

Sequim #1 cat 3's

2011-03-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to finally race with some new mates we've brought over to Thumbprint this year, in particular Steve O who was with Apex last year and who is a good buddy with Olivier, a standout rider and all around good guy. Steve is a great training partner, very strong, level head and always in a good mood and sharp witted to boot.

I wanted to do 3's race for opener because the start was earlier and I hoped to get home sooner. Many of my bro's were out of town so masters race would have been a bit lonely. Although a chance to give PruDog a little bit of the business was tempting don't get me wrong.

So 3's it was and carpool is great and Steve and I tried to get a group to go. He had a buddy Jason on Cucina who was game to drive and with his pal Frank we made a nice foursome to split gas/ferry and fill up the conversation for the drive. It rained almost all the way to the race but was overcast and dry at the course. We were there plenty early and had to wait to register but time to warmup came quickly which was nice because it was effing cold and we were all pretty underdressed for that.

I wore knee warmers, arm warmers, base, jersey, vest and long jersey for warmup then ditched for race and was fine. It suited me as I seem to run warmer than most and many simply raced in several layers and tights in many cases. I wanted to run power for the race to see the info but the aforementioned hub body issue rendered that moot. It was a good reason to break the Eason's out of hibernation and put them on cervelo for first time and that bike is hot! Carbon wheels on a carbon bike - it was dreamy....

Getting it rained on the drive over was its PNW initiation I suppose. OK so opening warmup was fine but I decided that I should switch from new shoes which had been worn once for bike fit back to old shoes which were setup same but just felt slightly different. But couldn't get into the car in time to just resolved to tough it out and it was fine after all, no knee or leg issues to speak of.

We took off and first 1/2 lap was good racing with our plan being to follow/participate in any moves and if all together at end work the lead out for Ryan G. Oops, I didnt roll call it: Alex T, Steve O, Ryan G and Tony B. present and correct at the start. Here's is Alex's race recap...

Alex took off after we came out of neutral start and was quickly responded to by pack. A few more accelerations here and there but nothing sticks. I settle in now after maybe 4 miles in or so and decide to probe it. Launch my Gallaher style hard attack up the side trying to really light it up and get a solid gap. Worked but noone came with so I 3/4 pedaled it for a mile or two realizing the pack's letting me dangle. Ryan G. actually gets up to me and carries on - nice, pack integrates on the climb and short back third before the headwind long return section. This is where Alex goes again just after we've reintegrated, so its the 3rd serious dig, with Farestart having initiated all three - nice showing I'd say. Pretty sure its Matt Oseto from Audi who goes with Alex. They dangle as well just a 100 meters or so for (in retrospect) a very long time. At least 5-7 minutes. The key to the race was the second little group which really just dribbled off the front on a little roller into the wind. My spider sense went off, and was doubled when the second Audi guy was the last to accelerate to join the dribblers because now they had two men in the break. I had told Alex before race we should try to get two men in the break and he said "pack never allow it".

Well, I allowed it as I thought for sure the pack would chase this dribble group down and then that'd be the end of that. But they didn't. I'm writing this without the results in hand but was sure a bikesale wasnt there, but there was one allegedly. Basically the 3's rode the race like the masters would - enough teams were in the break that noone else cared enough to mount a serious counter attack. Starbucks really were the patrollers of the front chasing all the accelerations down. Ryan was present as was Steve and I but not in a patrol mode. I wanted to conserve for the counter move, or a bridge move but the pack literally sat up and did 23 mph to the break's 27 mph. Sure, JL team and Recycled and Cucina and one Garage and a couple Hammer Nutrition would make obligatory short pulls in front but would quickly get demoralized and give up. Never saw them try to actively organize and bring the group back. In fact, the pack got really passive aggressive in pure negative racing style: no - you can't send a group off to bridge, we won't allow that, but nor will we pedal very hard. In fact Tom Wick warned up a couple times that we were at risk for neutralization because the cat 4's were hot on our heels. LAME!

With two laps to go, we actually said 'to heck with it' and organized a rolling paceline at the front to get the pack speed up, but the teams with the most to gain were diffident at best. Ryan even tried a bridge move but Sbux was quick to shut it down. I told him we're in this weird noone can go fast and noone can leave the group thing, so to save for sprint and we can practice our leadout. Tony B was riding great and I was happy that all Farestart's were in the front quarter of the pack the final laps of the race. All we knew from Alex was he was rolling his 1080 and had a 1 in 8 or 1 in 9 shot at the win. Hopefully he was measuring his effort to be sure Audi didn't take advantage of their numbers.

Final lap, we saw some good digs on the various tiny hills, but never enough to separate, plus guys would rest after climbing really hard. I was pleased I could sit or stand these things with ease. Bike fricking flies uphill. Every lap I'd hit my gel flask, and never drained my HEED/Perpetuem mix front bottle or NUUN rear bottle.

Half a lap to go, Ryan and I had been planning how to make this work for him. I said I'd stay at front and start to position after final turn and try to get him to 250 meters and then I would fade right leaving him room left to jump. I chose Mark Mirante's wheel to follow because he is a sprint machine and strangely enough starbucks left him alone before the final turn?? So I follow Mirante through turn and then we're at 1k sign, still following, speeding up, I'm still second wheel and Gist in on me, I hear noise behind and start to wind up all I can starting probably at 850 meters? I'm topped at 500 meters and Ryan comes around with a good punch but is probably just a hair too far, he either takes it or loses it barely by an inch. I just hold on, not really stand sprinting just hoping to finish it top 20. There was a bad crash behind me and it wiped out Matt Haldeman and Tony B and Steve O. They didn't come off their machines, just had to slow or stop.

Alex finished 5th. Pete Banko at late 50s years young, stayed in the break until the end, finishing 6th or 7th.

So in summary, we initiated the breaks and the winning move, we remained in the front and we raced our plan in the end field sprint. We all stayed upright to race another day. So this should be a good first race. Fitness wise, Steve and I feel great, and think the training is progressing exactly as it should. I just still am pissed about seeing that dribble move emerge and NOT ACTING ON IT.

Ride back with the men was super. We stopped a Smitty's Fat burger and got a good meal and a dose of conservative, rural politics. I look forward to seeing Jason and Frank at the races in the future.

little opener effort, but on the trainer

2011-03-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

Big day today, last day for cub basketball league where I coach my middle son Jasper and his mates in U-10 city league basketball. Basketball was what I lived for before bike racing made its way into my life. Plus they don't make power meters for basketball yet. Anyway I still love teaching the game to today's youth and so I needed to drive to work to get to the season-end party, then final game at Nathan Hale High School. Then pack for Sequim race tomorrow.

So I did a 30 mins workout on the trainer without power because even though I have my wheel back, its not recording on the head unit and is experiencing some bad chain suck which Saul says may need to result in a cassette hub body reinstall at Speedy.

So I just did some hard and easy efforts high and low RPM and got a little sweat going. Everything feels fine.

2x20 indoor

2011-03-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

I took my powertap hub over to Speedy Reedy to have Garrick rebuild the wheel and hub. So I did my 2x20 workout with no data, so just relied on perceived effort, new tyre on the rear wheel so I'm sure the interface to the trainer was different. It felt OK and since I was back on Cervelo I was fine with the knee. Just basically sweat a lot.

12x 1.5 mins Seattle Multisport

2011-03-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

I was here alone today. Did the workout on litespeed but knee felt a little twingy probably due to the back to back rides on the old ride, after prior rides had been on the cervelo.

I lost the workout for an unrelated reason on the head unit so no data but while I managed to keep the speed and effort much more uniform than the week before, I did not produce as much total work. I also set the LT at 330 versus 360. Since the knee never quite felt 100% i chose not to push it all out. Overall it was fine though.

VLBR with Montreux

2011-03-06T13:32:00.000-08:00

I chose training over Mason 1. I chose Sunday over Saturday team ride and I chose 6am start over anything a reasonable person would choose.

South lake, May Valley, Newport, Montreaux climb over the saddle and back on Forest ridge and Coal Creek parkway where I swear these are the most unhappy people and drivers in Seattle. I always have an issue here with people buzzing me, honking, flipping me off or whatever. Same today, needlessly close buzz by a SUV. Like I say, these must be some unhappy people who try to get off by threatening cyclists. At 745am on Sunday no less!

This was first ride after 5 days rest period and body felt really great. Mild headache throughout but back was serviceable and seated or standing climbing was good.

Best per hour Kj average yet, 771 or something. 2700 overall. 3hrs 15 mins. Should have rode the Cervelo but oh well.

Buddies are going to Hawaii tomorrow! Jealous as heck. Couple guys there already were sharing video and pics and it looks simply awesome there....ahh maybe one day.

12x 1.5 mins Seattle Multisport

2011-02-28T22:51:00.000-08:00

Well, today started out very badly. We showed up dutifully for the workout but I wasn't loaded in the computrainer so I tried to add myself but instead corrupted the whole effing file and caused no workout to happen. Only Martin, Dean, Greg and Steve were there to miss out. Shit!

But I was able to make it back to the gym at 7:15 today to do the same workout with Steve O, Polly and a young dude named Andre I think. He is a cat 5 with big dreams, and he had big speed too - he was riding us way off his wheel speed-wise, so much so that I smell a rat. Either his weight is entered wrong or he didn't calibrate his computrainer to the proper resistance. He was rolling 10 -15 mph faster than Steve or I but didn't seem to the watts output up that high, nor did he seem to have much leg speed.

I started the workout at 360 watts threshold and toyed with putting it to 400 just to say I did, but was glad I did not. I finally figured out how to ride this workout properly.Don't overspin it on the uptick, just ride it actually on the slower side and try to keep the watts rising. This proved to be MUCH more difficult that last week or anytime before. In fact I cramped a little towards the end!

I started studying Steve O's results and while normally I don't pay much attention, without Martin or Greg there I did for a change and realized he was pushing major watts/kg. But since he's 30+ pounds lighter than me its less evident when watching gross watt numbers. So on number 6 or 7 I tried to put out the same wkg as him and it was taxing! This pretty much blew my wad and I could not hold the same speed for the rest and in fact I slowed down preciptiously. You see torque go way up with the lower speed.

So compared to last week, average power was way up, from 227 last week to 262 this week. Total KJ of work up to 971. And I defintitely feel more tired in the legs than last week.

Neighborhood Hills jaunt

2011-02-27T18:49:00.000-08:00

So I was stuck trying to get a ride in and am damned tired of the trainer so scooted out all bundled up warm on race bike and resolved to just hit a bunch of hills in the neighborhood. Trying to stay out for 2 hours or so. Hit Winderemere, out SandPoint to 35th and up that, down and back around to Princeton and up what the hey, to top at 65th, down and around again and up the steep part of 60th, then down and up 65th, then 70th, street side, then 70th, windy side, through the Sand Point Country club where this lady refused to move out of the way of 6'3" 174lbs guy on a white bike looking a bit manic, what's up with that?

Then back down and trail to the windy road 92nd and then down to Meadowbrook and behind Nathan Hale and back up again and then down 25th to trail and over to Hec Ed and over to CUH and up the hill at Laurelhurst neighborhood and then home.

About 1hr50 mins
1500 KJ which didn't seem like much at the time but is pretty good compared to other rides of similar duration.
287 normalized power, was mostly climbing, much of it standing.

Something is rattling, and these waterbottle cages suck. Need to get a chain watcher thing installed at Speedy.

It's time to race, too much training make Jack a dull boy.

Cross country ski

2011-02-24T18:39:00.000-08:00

Did a nice 8.8K trail set at Leavenworth, at the Sleeping Lady lodge area. Out by the fish hatchery and around. Felt super, really enjoyed the core engagement when double poling. TMI?

It took Cindy and I a little over an hour to do the course. Then we had a nice lunch at O'grady's and motored back to Seattle.

2x20 indoor

2011-02-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

Good solid back to basics workout today. New bike, old kit and the garage. Cola flavored Nuun. Sunrise socks. Shoe is still broken in the buckle.

Haven't downloaded the data but I do know this: 290 watts first 20 mins, then 300 for the second. I found that I was able to handle it a bit better by upshifting and then holding 80-85 rpm. I did the higher rpm on the second interval.

Back is still so-so.

All three kids are with others! We're going to Sleeping Lady lodge now and will do some x country skiing tomorrow.

12x 1.5 mins Seattle Multisport

2011-02-21T08:51:00.000-08:00

Back to this workout after the week off last week. First time on new race bike here at SMT. Good to see Martin and Dean. Noone else today. My back was bothering me after Saturday's ride and into yesterday. We did some rock climbing as a family and I definitely noticed it then. But slept well and it felt good before the workout.

We watched Fight Club which I haven't seen in forever.

Martin brought his race bike and I was expecting a knife fight with him. I felt good and was able to dial up the threshold power to 350 and keep speed up, so much so that I wound out the gear at 54x12. Just tried to hold it at 39-40mph on the upswing and go hard on the last one. I was certainly feeling the workout but was surprised when I looked at power data later at home and saw that overall workout was only 827KJ, this is lowest I've recorded there. During the workout, the average watts did compare favorably to the last workout but only slightly. The speed average was higher by a lot, does this mean I can do less work and go faster on the new bike? Who knows.

Back felt pretty good aferwards, all things considered but has tightened up as a drove home and type this. Time for a hot shower.

266 avg power during the inerval set
112 avg cadence
38 mph avg

Sun day, Race Bike and 3+ hours

2011-02-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

Finally a great day to ride. Got logistically out in the afternoon, a little later start but was able to ride with Nelson. Rolled south to do south lake, then mercer, then some hill repeats. Big tailwind down, big headwind back up. New bike felt super but seatpost did slip down during the ride, am nervous to overtighten carbon post - need to borrow a torque wrench to make sure its properly tight.

I ended up pulling most if not all the way, which was fine with me as I could go at my own pace and he could sit in the draft. Tempo pace downwind, v02 pace coming back into the wind - 320-340. Did some extended standing on some of the rises. Recovered some on the downwind section of MI but still led everything. Pushed it on the return side into the wind, setting a new 15 mins peak power record at 328 watts but could not snap Nelly off.

Coming back over i-90 was worst wind I've ever ridden in, was significantly leaned over to compensate. Dropped Nelly in leschi and I hit Madrona climb 2x, and Alder climb the same. Finished with 3hrs10 riding, 2424KJ, 55 or so miles.

Saw Martin S on my way home - he has new bike same as mine.

1x LT on LWB

2011-02-17T08:27:00.000-08:00

Rode with Greg and RC kinda last minute but weather really sucked. Very cold, dark and rainy. We did Seward and back and I pulled most of the way. Greg was resting up for his indoor ride later that day. I did not feel like repeating that loop and so just rode over the saddle of Interlake and then back home.

Not much else to say about that ride. Did see Morgan C later that day - he has new job near Aquarium at least temporarily.

1x20 trainer & commute

2011-02-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

Today was a hard day to ride the trainer. Was sunny but cold. I was trying to do neuro's on new bike but lost interest and decided just to ride to work. Overall workout wasnt bad at 1100KJ.

30/30s SMT

2011-02-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

We had good turnout today but some technical issues in getting the workout started. Even tech-savy Martin was wrestling with the thing to get it to work. Best we could do was the old 30/30 workout.

We watched 'Inglorius Basterds' and right away there was big trouble in little China. First off, we had a nice lady there who had not done the workout at 6am Monday in my memory, but she clearly didn't know what she was in for. RC, Martin, Steve, Greg and myself - so testosterone heaven. So violent film, sweaty guys, anxiety over starting the workout, then Greg goes all postal. He yells and screams incoherently and its because he wasn't ready for the workout to start - wasn't calibrated yet. Then he gets upset because the program isn't working right for him, something about being the opposite of the rest of us. So he restarts his unit but its not right.

Then he goes all primal as the work crescendo's. What fun!

Martin and Steve were consistent and strong. Greg started out white-hot but it seemed unsustainable. RC labored in his first ever SMT effort which takes getting the hang of.

I tried to stay consistent hoping to build up speed/power at the end. This is tough over 30 reps. Compared to last strong one of these I had a little more power, speed and cadence. 261, 30mph and 103 rpm.

2x20s @ Threshold

2011-02-13T12:00:00.000-08:00

Thought weather would be lousy both days and that was wrong! Did trainer today hoping to hold both at 300. Ended up 310 and 298 which I'll take. A weird speed thing happened early on at the first interval. I was spinning the 53x12 at like 30 mph which never happens on home trainer. After 5 mins or so i needed to shift up but it seemed to get harder rather than easier. Finally it settlled in - must have been the tyre was cold or something.

This ride and Friday's 3x15's suggest power levels comparable to one month later last year - March. So I think its promising.

Since I did not kill it this weekend I look forward to tomorrow's session.

3x15's

2011-02-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

I love this training ride. Do one interval on mercer to east hill, another back to i-90 and another from leschi to seward and back.

1800 KJ of work, held 302, 286 and 280 ish for the three. When we first did this last year I was pretty shattered. I could have probably gone harder with teammates on this, and last year this was a staple ride with Justin who could always keep the pace up.

The power nums are comparable to 3x15s done a month later last year.

Low rpm & Neuro's

2011-02-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

So3rd day on it following Sunday's hill ride and Monday's indoor came a 2x leschi to seward set with Greg and RC. Focus on low rpm (70) glut focussed pedal stroke. On second set we added the neuro-muscular form sprint motion maybe 10 or 12 times. Best I felt was at the end of the second, form sprinting up that little hill, then holding the big gear at about 341 for what seemed like a good long bit into Leschi. Back remains a limiter but it seems to be getting progressively better. When I'm not talking about it anymore watch out because the rest is feeling great.

36 miles
2 hrs
200w avg, 250 nrml
peaked at 1041

12x 1.5 mins Seattle Multisport

2011-02-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

Round two of this workout. Rode hard yesterday but felt OK coming in. Got up to speed quick and just kept the RPMs up. We had Greg, Dean and Martin today.

We watched "300" - such a sweet movie.

My goal was to try to flatten the speed line from last week - and tail it up towards the end, not down. So I went into the first few a little easier. I was starting to max out gears on the last few. Second to last definitely felt the best. So I was quite surprised to see the KJ total at less than 900 - 887 v. 919 from the week prior. Average watts were down too, from 235 to 224. But check this out...RPMs went from 95-102!! And avg speed was up from 28mph to 30....

The speed line was flatter, and the watts didn't dip so much on the rest cycle.

I was pretty tired until 5pm when I seemed to get a second wind. Back was pretty tight all day afterward - iced it.

Cougar/Squak/Cougar

2011-02-06T19:27:00.000-08:00

Repeat of the old CSC ride I enjoyed last year before the rotten knee syndrome kicked in. Crappy weather for sure, rained the whole time. Started with RC but he broke two spokes just past the Roanoke Tavern on MI and had to head home. Had so much rain I had to wring my gloves out several times too.

Glad I had the 27, was able to sit the climbs for the most part but stand occasionally to rest the back. Back felt good at top of Squak when stood to take a natural break and stretch.

2800KJ
3.5 hours
56 miles
3 peaks
210 avg power
295 up Zoo sidePublish Post

2x15s Mercer Island

2011-02-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

Back to the meat and potatoes workout from last year for thresholds. This is a great route, not too much traffic and it was good to be back. But need to plan better to have no backpack. My back is slowly recovering and is now a limiter, legs feel great but have to take it easy on the back. It will be nice when the back is a non issue again.

Goal was to hold 300 watts on the two legs and it was touch and go there - more like 290-310. I was closer to the target on the return leg which always feels harder. 291 watts avg for that.

36 miles
1600 KJ.
A little over 2 hours.

I'm now crossing back into year over year data (i hosed up my files from late '09, early '10 due to stupid powertap upgrade thing) and it was good to see a little higher cadence and power than at least last March.

Achilles is back to normal, now that I am not thinking about pedal stroke anymore and just letting it do what it wants.

12x 1.5 mins Seattle Multisport

2011-02-01T22:36:00.000-08:00

4th workout at Seattle Multisport. Martin, Tim, Dean, Steve-O in the house. New workout by Becker and it was very hard. At 1.5 mins the intervals are very difficult compared to the 30 sec ones. We did 12 total intervals.

Here is the data from Becker:

Test Location: Seattle Multisport
course filename = 3 x 1.5min PF 110 max.mrc
Duration: 55.00 Minutes
Course Description: 3 X 1.5MIN PF 110MAX.MRC
================================================
Name:                   DEAN, RYAN
Date of Birth:          0/0/1900
Weigh-in:               174
Track Position:         2
Finish Time:            55:00.0 Seconds
Anaerobic Threshold:    320
Average Speed =         29.49 MPH
Peak Speed =            39.38 MPH
Average Power =         251.39 Watts
Peak Power =            397.00 Watts
Average Pulse Power =   0
Average Watts/Kg =      3
Rolling Resistance after 5 Minute Warmup: 1.98 Pounds
Average SS = 793.9
------------------------------------------------

Over 900 KJ work, we may get these to be a plus 1,000KJ effort which would be pretty remarkable. Definitely felt better than the week before when I had the back spasm. The file was disappointing in that the average speed declined over the course of the last 9 intervals. I can see the specific interval where I lost focus and had difficulty staying on the gear and it all went south.

Most remarkable stat remains the average cadence which came in at 95 rpm - smoking!

Key next week will be to moderate speed and keep it flat over the first 9 then slightly increasing for last three.

We watched Zohan, which was my first time.....

VLBR 2hrs 45 mins

2011-01-31T19:57:00.000-08:00

I got up early to ride solo again to see how back would respond. Rode solid through south end, and then back up and around Mercer. Tried to hold 250 watts throughout and felt pretty good. I think I was "ankling" too much and have decided this is stupid as now my achilles hurts. It never hurt before. I think I just think too much about the pedal stroke and should leave well enough alone. Even Sheldon Browne says its dumb.

224 avg
246 normalized
2200KJ
40 miles in 2 hours...

Easy ride 1.5 hours

2011-01-31T19:50:00.001-08:00

First ride back to see how back responded. It was OK. Rode to Seward and back into office via I-90. Not too bad.

25x 30/30s at Seattle Multi Sport

2011-01-27T20:55:00.000-08:00

So the back tweaked on me today and felt it on the way to the gym. Tried to stretch it out before the workout but no joy. Pressed on, but couldn't hold the watts and dialled back. Pushed through the 30s but it was pretty lame. Couldn't situp afterwards due to back pain. Powermeter just said "you suck" over and over.

Iced back all day, and Tue and Wed Chiro. Obviously raising the handlebars back up and trying to ride easy tomorrow Friday 1/27.

The rest has actually been nice, don't get me wrong - great to sleep in for 3 straight mornings! Let's hope this is short lived back thing.

VLBR w/ team 5.5 hr madness

2011-01-27T20:51:00.000-08:00

Dear diary. Five hour rides are madness, don't let anyone tell you different. This is hard stuff. Big group, over 12 folks. Sedate pace up and out of town over Hollywood. Good 20 mins climb up High Rock road or something like that. Front group takes off, I stay in my zones and am fine. Descent is fun. At 2hrs 45 mins I start to try to hold consistent 250 watts pace. We do another longer climb, Cherry something and its also good. Hit Carnation and fill bottles - good through Ames Lake and hour 4. But then disaster. I feel good and go with a small move but the lead guy doesn't know the route and we get off course with the bunch. Turn around to climb back to turn and are probably 20 mins behind them. I realize I don't like be 4+ hours in and still have a LONG way to go to get home. 12:30pm rolls by, we've been riding since 7:30. Opt to take shortest route home along burke Northbound. Can't hold Olivier's wheel at 19 mph, need to roll more like 17 mph. Home. Shattered.

5.5 hours
97 miles
3800KJ
180 watts average
232 normalized

Downer was my recent bike fit called for a lower handlebar, which I did by 1.5 CMs. Learn from me, do these adjustments incrementally and not all at once - my back got tweaked although it didn't really hit me till Monday morning.

2x20s @ Threshold

2011-01-20T20:39:00.000-08:00

I felt tired for these and it was hard to hold at 295 watts for each of the 2 twenty minute intervals. But I did hold it and the total work was higher than last 2x20 at threshold. Felt ready for Saturday's 90 miler. Little did I know...

Endurance ride

2011-01-17T20:37:00.000-08:00

Today was supposed to be endurance but RC wanted some hills so we did 7x hills @ 1200KJ total work. I was tired from Monday. Felt like I was dipping a little deep in the tank. Chose to skip stairs on Wed to rest up for Thursday and Saturday.

25x 30/30s at Seattle Multi Sport

2011-01-17T12:59:00.000-08:00

We repeated the workout from last Monday, but added some people including Martin who was doing it for the first time. I was afraid I'd be tired from Sunday's ride and all the time in the trainer for the fit the night before but it was all ok. New wedges felt great and even the canted over saddle was feeling ok.

Finished over 900KJ for the workout, and felt like I was holding back some to honor the workout. Compared to last week I generated more power and didn't vary on the up and down on the intevals so much as last week. Average power was 230 but the startling fact was average cadence was 93 rpm's. Yikes!

I still don't understand why it feels easier on the trainer for me - there may be a setting for me but not the other guys. Martin and Greg finished with me and Steve and Dean finished well too.

Now my left Glut muscle is hurting!

Bike Fit

2011-01-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

I was a a guinea pig for the Bike Fit guys who had a couple trainees in to learn the Paul Swift fit system. We were at Woodinville bike and I brought the Cervelo to be checked out on it.

Made some saddle adjustments.
Added some more wedges, so 3 on the left and 4 on the right now. Small cleat adjustment, and spent most time looking at different stem combinations to get lower on the machine. Winner was 130mm with -10 degrees.

Otherwise everything is looking good fit wise.

Cougar ride

2011-01-16T12:47:00.000-08:00

Rode solo and it was very warm - like 57 degrees. But it rained a ton and there was gusting winds. Also my powertap was dead so I had to ride on feel, probably not bad now and again. I had a big headwind going up Lakemont and it made the climb unsittable for me. I had to stand several parts of it. But once up towards the school I had tailwind and could sit the rest of it. Need to try again on a calm day and see whats up with the grade.

Bad weather had me head back sooner than planned but it was a fine ride overall.

3 hours, some climbing and some good tempo coming back. Good to have the light back.

2x20s @ Threshold

2011-01-13T17:51:00.000-08:00

OK, first sessions to try to hold the tested threshold level of 297. So I did 296 and 296 respectively. This was a perfect week, VLBR Saturday, vo2 work Monday and endurance work today. Wish I could have bike commuted but weather stank.

Got my shoes baked today at Speedy and went to use gift card at Gregg's but the didn't have cleats in stock. Lame. Asked the dude if Bellevue could send some over, "sure" he says, be there by next Tuesday..lame.

I will pick them up in Bellevue on the way to the bike fit on Sunday.

Stairs

2011-01-11T19:17:00.000-08:00

We bailed on riding because of temps. Greg, Jim, RC and Martin at the stairs. Some walkers, 5 runners, and I couldn't hold the pace today. Martin killed it. Jim tough too. I guess the workout was more fatiguing than I thought. I couldn't finish running some of them, which is lame and like quitting. So I tried to limp up but the legs wouldn't do it.

Could only really push it one time. But good company and the 2 up 1 down runner was pleasant enough with the intermittent rests.

Forgot my wallet and keys at home.

Current Core Routine

2011-01-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

Since the chiro visit in late September I have been hitting the core pretty hard. Here is what a typical core workout looks like these days:

Front Plank with the superman embellishments. Hold the first one for 2min:15secs. Do 2x with embellishments.

Side Plank with the add-ons. Do 1 min each side, then 2x with embellishments. I couldn't do this last Summer. (I couldn't embed it for some reason...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQWlsZVOGt8&feature=related

Then, some cobra's, some bridge's.

30x with the foam roller pulling knees to chin and back again while holding back prone. Something like the end of this video:

From hands and knees, about 20-30 knee's out like a dog next to a fire hydrant.

Sprinkle in 3x handstands against the wall. No reason other than they are fun.

10x jacknife's on the swedish ball like so

Pushups, slow and steady, not so many as the old days, but sometimes plyometric ones.

I do some pec stretches the chiro taught me in a door way.

It's pretty good - I'm usually sweating by the end. Pandora "16 bit" or "dubstep" does the trick.

Seattle Multisport 30/30s

2011-01-10T19:11:00.000-08:00

Greg, Steve-O and Dean-O and I met up for our Monday morning session at Seattle Multisport today. My first time there. Cool setup, like an old house thats been converted into a pure cycle studio.

Tim "Legs" Becker had already loaded our workout and me as an athlete in the system, just needed to dial in the weight at 174lbs and get down to business. Nice kinetic trainers and I find computrainers always easier to ride on than my own trainer. Last week was 5x 1 mins and today it was 25x of 30 secs on/off after a build up. We can modulate the threshold setting from the hand unit on-the-fly which is cool.

I was rested up from the VLBR and this felt pretty effortless. Again, computrainers always feel easier to me for some reason. I did try to stick to the workout though and not overkill it. Tim suggested 108% of LT for this but I chose to shoot for 120% vo2 which I had precalculated so I knew the range I wanted - in this case it was 350 watts. It was too easy really, so I notched up the LT on the handheld from 300, to 315, 320 and 325 by the end. I also found the system gets noticeably easier once you are spun up to desired wattage and you have to spin harder to maintain. So I geared down and made it work for me. Felt the legs later in the day, mainly in the hammie area I presume from the spin I needed which was more than usual. Max 200 rpm!?! 147rpm on the tallest spike!? This is crazy rpm.

I look forward to next week!

VLBR w/ team

2011-01-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

Martin, Greg, Jed, Steve-O, RC and Tony Bravetti met up today for 4 hours ride. Weather was much better than predicted or expected. Cold but was warmly dressed. Big bowl oatmeal and yogurt before ride, two bottles perpetuem and heed mix with endurolytes. 4.5 oz of gel, a banana and 1.5 PBJ sandwiches, one being for Martin just in case.

Goal was endurance which for me meant 4 hours at 250 watts if possible, like the other two rides done a few weeks back. But from U Village to log boom I don't think Martin went any slower than 350 watts. We met up with our pleasantly large crew and were off. Out to woodinville and then hollywood hill for my first time up ever. Its a nice climb. Steve-O, Martin and Jed I think were having fun firing it up the road. I had to exercise restraint not to pull them back and join in the fun but kept reminding myself we had 4 hours to ride and goal was 250. About 1.5 hours in we made it to a nice valley and proceeded to paceline up at about 21mph and it was nice to practice the rotation again since I don't know when. It felt slower to me but good pace for the group to stay together. We made a quick pit stop for potty and food and back at it.

This was a really nice stretch of road and after a bit it seemed we separated out and I know RC got gapped off. We entered some rollers and I just tried to hold the same pace as before but now the elastic was threatening to break as the protagonists from early we'rent to be found in the front any longer.

I hit the bottle, the gel and the banana early and often - this felt good to keep everything topped off. Once we regrouped and made it back together, 220-230 watts seemed a better pace to keep things together back through hi way 9 and on the return approach with the two middling climbs and the final pitch we usually race up to the gas station. Greg was telling Tony to watch out for Martin, who had been quiet in the rear when all of sudden he was off like a real shot on the second of the three climbs. Like an attack in a race. Greg and I mustered the courage to reel him slowly back, and then Greg got off his wheel to get on mine, ostensibly to measure me for the final climb sprint. I was impressed with the move, it did shell everyone else, but was worried Martin had pressed too hard too early for a 4 hour ride. Shamefully though I did sit on his wheel while he valiantly worked to the final climb. Feeling bad about this I started the sprint too early as is my wont and it was quiet for most of the ascent, but Greg had been able to measure me from behind and was gaining and did overtake me for a spell. But since its my blog I can tell it from my perspective which was I pulled it out by the "real" finish. One piece may chose to debate using the comments field below. If he does he should go ahead and give me credit for the upset Seahawk victory because I spelled it all out on the way out.

After we regrouped I finally ate one of the PBJs which was like cement, and managed to drop my glove. Then I got a flat. But I was happy with the peak power reading of 1214, i think its a PR. The 5 sec was not but the 30 sec 818 watts was a new PR. Felt like I rode within myself the whole day.

Happy totals
4 hours ride time
78 miles
2854 KJ
Nrml Power 242
Avg Power 193

20 min power test

2011-01-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

I followed the Coggan proscribed FT test protocol on my indoor trainer. Three spinups, 5 minutes all out and then the 20 minute interval all out.

Managed 385 on the 5 mins part which is down from peak record in the summer of 404, off by roughly 5%. This does take a lot out of you for the 20 mins interval. I did it at 313 watts, just below PR of 316 set back in June on LWB while doing tempo with multiple sprints - not really a comparable test but pretty close. According to Coggan this should be skewed down 5% to equal FTP level - so 297.

Others are recording higher averages for 20 minute intervals on trainers but I wonder about the freshness piece and the setup on other rigs versus my own crappy trainer.

I also feel a mild head cold coming on.

6x1 mins, 2x10 mins, trainer

2011-01-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

I blew off the stairs today to do the trainer workout I would have done had I gone to Seattle Multisport on Monday.

Did one more than proscribed of the 1 mins, at 350 watts, then negative split 10 min intervals at 265 and 280.

Back on my old trainer after being spoiled by Nellie's cycleops.

training ride gone bad

2011-01-04T22:18:00.000-08:00

Tim and Martin and I vainly attempted the dawn patrol but it was too dark and too cold. So we bailed and had coffee. A lame 16 miles and 643 KJ. Now its raining so moving to plan b on Wed which was to do the workout I was supposed to do on Monday at Seattle Multisport but will do in my garage instead.

We're having fun right?

misc training NYE

2010-12-31T21:52:00.000-08:00

First I hauled two 3 year old boys in sleds up a groomed ski track 9 or 10 x hard resulting in their fierce giggling. Then I jogged down the hill leading both sleds so they wouldn't carom out of control. Running in my timeless OneSport hikers was very cozy and comfy. Snow helped too.

That got the heart rate up. Unfortunately I slipped on the very last run down and gave the other boy, not my own, a split lip. But he braved it out and was OK in the end.

Then, at 10:15 or so we loaded up in ski boots and walked up the cat track at Summit East to the top of Hyak, loaded car flares up to poles and skied down the ungroomed wind-crusted face in the dark at midnight. Walking up the groomed cat track felt super and I could do it easy in ski boots, but my effort meant I had to wait at the top for nearly 40 minutes while the sweat cooled me down, but was well dressed enough that I could enjoy the super clear night and all the stars. Awesome night and a good way to celebrate the new year. A few flask hits too.

But next day we all succumbed to the stomach bug. Boo.

2x20 indoor

2010-12-28T21:58:00.000-08:00

Did this one on 12/28. 268 watts & 284 watts. Getting tired of the trainer......tried to max out heart rate towards the end but got interrupted and quit. It got to 189 bpm after 1 min at 400 watts which I think is about 10 bpm below max.

2x20s on Xmas day

2010-12-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

What's better than getting a little sweat on for Xmas. Dialed up the new cervelo on Nelson's trainer and did a negative split endurance pair at 275 and 280, then decided to cool down outside around the neighborhood when I realized holy smokes the saddle is too low!!! Never noticed it on the trainer but outside it was awful. It's going up a half an inch at least.

Did get an appointment for bike fit in January over at Paul Swift's place.

I got a stomach bug the next day and not quite out of it yet on Monday when I wrote this up.

Endurance ride

2010-12-23T18:33:00.000-08:00

Lessee...it was Martin, Justin back from a long hiatus, RC and Tim F. We rolled to Mercer, did a loop and Tim F rolled south to do more miles and rest of us headed back. This ride was noteworthy for the lack of sufficient headlights. 2 out of 5 don't cut it and it was hard to see. My light is en route to Light and Motion to get checked out.

All data pointed to endurance for me - short little push through arboretum which felt good.

stairs

2010-12-22T13:59:00.001-08:00

Back to the stairs today. It rained. Martin and Jim K were there and then eventually Rocky and Jen made it too. Couldn't hold Martin's pace today. Did 5 runners.

5x Hills north End

2010-12-22T13:58:00.000-08:00

Met up with Greg, RC and two new teamie's I don't know so well yet, Lane and Steve-O. Every team needs a "Steve-O". Go to party name.

I am missing my Light and Motion front lamp, which is on the "fritz" which is German for dorked up. The USPS chose to return it to me for lack of postage, despite postage being affixed to the front of the box. Must be Holiday pressure. Which is American for "buy stuff". Fortunately I could borrow Suzie's and it worked great - 700 lumens!

Nice weather and a good chance of pace for training - these hills are longer than the in-city ones we do. They are wet and I need to change my pads out probably. We did 4 semi unique ascents, RC was not feeling well though.

We took the first couple easier - staying in endurance pace for the most part. Then on the route up to horizon view that I know I gave it some stick in order to test the new guys and see if they can help push me on the hills. They did pretty good. I tried to keep my shoulders real still which was easy to focus on because Lane moves his quite a lot when climbing. For the last stretch of that climb, about 5 minutes or so, I was holding 400 watts pretty steady for 5+ watts/Kg, but trying to keep a still upper body. Good climb and we did just a couple more to end the hills portion of the program.

Then rode downtown with Greg and Steve and dropped him then headed home.

Nearly 4 hours, 1900 KJ. Touch of lower back fatigue probably due to the amount of seated climbing.

2x20s indoor

2010-12-18T16:58:00.000-08:00

Did these on new Cervelo and on Nelson's nice cycle ops trainer - felt great although the seatpost seems to flex a bit for my liking. But shorter crankarms, titanium spindles which are shorter and slightly longer seat to stem all melted away and overall sensations were great.

282 first interval so I wanted to make a negative split so I knew I had to go a bit harder so kept it in the 300 realm fairly easily. Finished the second at 309 for the 20 minutes. Max heart rate 179 - this all compares very well to March 2x20s.

Still need to get the professional fit done. Hoping it works out with Cycle U otherwise I need to call on Paul Swift.

Endurance Ride

2010-12-16T16:55:00.000-08:00

Actual outdoor ride finally. But still got rained on. Martin, RC and Greg. 30 miles 1200 KJ and couple good bursts.