Intervals suck!

After a couple of rest days / recovery I finally made it back on the bike yesterday.  I had debated riding since I have a sinus infection and I am having some problems breathing.  I decided to HTFU and get on out there.

In preparation for the upcoming races, Races at the Lake, I decided that I should probably do some short hill repeats.  I decided to do 4×2 minutes as hard as I could.  All I can say is they suck!!!  I felt like I was going to fall over and die after each one, I just couldn’t catch my breath.  My numbers for the repeats weren’t too bad, they weren’t great either though.  For the repeats my average wattage (for each) was 450, 414, 441, and 415.

After the intervals I recovered for about thirty minutes then I met up with the Wheelers for the A/B group ride.  We had a pretty good ride, did a few climbs and I managed to get some pretty good intensity in. 

All in all it was a good day of riding.  I managed to get in 52 miles and realized that I really do feel like crap.  I started antibiotics last night, hopefully that will help me get to feeling better in time for Saturday’s race. 

As for the rest of the week, today I plan on riding two or three hours.  Tomorrow will be a rest day so I will probably take the Ninja out for a ride.  Friday I will do an easy one hour ride keeping my wattage well under 200 watts for the majority of the ride.  Saturday I plan on suffering like a dog and hopefully getting some upgrade points while I’m at it.

Deer Creek Road Race - Another win!!!!

Deer Creek – Mount Sterling Ohio

Cat 4/5 road race – 28 miles

15 racers

 

The course was approximately 14 miles and we raced two laps.  The route had some small climbs and spent most of the time on top of a ridge.  The temperature was approximately 40 degrees and it was very windy, approximately 20 mph winds.   Just about the entire course was a cross wind or a head wind.  There was only about a two-mile section that had a tail wind.

 

First lap - Pretty uneventful.  There was one attack, which I went with about eight miles into the lap.  This was a pretty painful attack and it caused a couple of racers to get dropped.  When we were caught at the top of the climb I asked a few people if they wanted to go with me, everyone said no.  The wind was downright nasty and made it pretty miserable though.  I think everyone had decided that it was a good day to just ride and then have a sprint finish.  Towards the end of the first lap I launched an attack.  Two or three riders went with me but nobody besides me really wanted to do any work.

 

Second lap – Pretty painful.  Our breakaway was caught shortly after the second lap started.  I recovered in the group for about a minute then I launched another attack.  Two people went with me again but once again nobody wanted to do any work.  Once we were caught I sat in the group for about a minute and then I launched attack number three.  I was already hurting.  One other guy went with me that likes to attempt breakaways.  I asked if he wanted to work together, he said yes so we went.

 

We were doing a pretty decent job at staying away (even passed the masters) but I started to notice that the speed on his pulls were slowing down.  I started getting concerned but then I noticed that two strong riders from Savage Hills were bridging up to us.  That was going to make life much easier.  The one guy made it to us but the other one couldn’t bridge the gap.  At this time me and the other guy continued to take pulls in order to give the new guy a chance to recover.  After a couple of rotations the Savage Hill guy still couldn’t take a pull.  The other racer couldn’t either.  I said the hell with it and stood up and took off.  There was still 11 miles to go.  I was in pain!

 

For the next few miles I just kept my head down and rode into the wind and the cross winds.   I was miserable.  I couldn’t see straight and I was drooling all over myself.  Each pedal stroke was an accomplishment.  Every time I looked back I could see the group catching up with me.  I would get a little distance from them then the next time they were close again.  I just kept on pedaling, one pedal stroke at a time.  I just kept hoping that my computer was wrong and after each small climb I would see the finish line.  It didn’t happen, it seemed the finish line was never going to get there.  I was hurting more than I have ever hurt on a bike (besides the cheat mountain challenge).  I was miserable!  I wanted to give up so bad.  At times I was praying for a flat.  I just kept on going.

 

I ended up passing a couple of cat 3’s that had been dropped.  One of them grabbed my wheel.  I had to ask him twice to let go, I told him that I didn’t want disqualified, I was working way too hard.  He finally figured out what I was talking about and backed off.  I just kept pedaling.

 

I finally came to the last climb, which I somehow made it up, then a long flat section with a nasty crosswind, then a small descent followed by one shorter climb, which I started to stand up and sprint.  I then looked back and saw that nobody was there so I just sat down and rode in.  I had made it, I won!!!!!

 

The only downside was that nobody at the finish line cheered, nobody even acknowledged that I had won.  Apparently they didn’t even realize it.  They thought that I was just someone who had been dropped from another race and then decided to quit when I crossed the finish line.  Oh well, I still won and the race director knew what was going on at least.  It still would have been a little nice to have had a little bit of cheering after doing that much freaking work.  Oh well, there’s always next time!

 

 

 

Green Tour race report - I WON!!!!

The Greene Tour – Yellow Springs Ohio

Cat 4/5 road race – 42 miles

22 racers

 

The course was approximately 10 miles with a ½ mile climb at the beginning of each lap.  The climb was around 10% for the first half or so then it dropped to around 4% or so for the remainder.  After that it stayed on top of the ridges for about 7 miles then it had a short downhill followed by a short climb then flat again until the ½ mile downhill before the next lap started.  The race started and ended with a 2.5 mile prologue type road, ended the same way.  At the ending it was a small climb followed by a ½ mile flat section for the finish.

 

On the first lap I found myself in a two man breakaway right after the climb.  The other rider asked if I wanted to do make it work and I replied yes.  We went for about a mile taking 10 second pulls when I realized that I was pulling at 23, he was pulling at 19.  I quickly realized that just wasn’t going to work.  We sat up and got back in the peloton.  The rest of the first lap there were a couple of more accelerations but nothing too bad.  The downside was that my left hamstring was trying to cramp up.  It had me pretty nervous, I was hoping that I could losen it up on the next climb.

 

Lap two I found myself first up the climb and feeling pretty good.  My plan seemed to work as far as loosening up my hamstring.  I tried to keep the pace up for a little while.  This seemed to work because we were now down to 15 riders.  I managed to stay towards the front the whole lap, actually I spent way too much time at the front but that’s another story.  I launched a few more attacks trying to separate the field a little, mainly out of corners and on the small climb.  This must have worked a little since we were down to 14 by the time we started the third lap.  The cool thing about this lap was seeing the four F-16’s flying in formation.  That was pretty cool!

 

Lap three was more of the same.  I kept finding myself at the front which was not my goal.  The wind was definitely making it’s presence known but I still kept doing work at the front.  I launched a couple more attacks but nothing came out of them.  I must say that this was by far the most aggressive I have ever raced.  It felt awesome!

 

Lap four there was a small attack on the climb by one of the skinny guys but it didn’t really amount to much.  The group got back together, well 12 of us did, then we kept on going.  At one point the group slowed down a little and the other two almost caught us.  We sped back up before they were able to though.  Then one guy attacked, and it was a good attack.  He did it on the small climb and nobody reacted.  Before we knew it he had a nice gap.  We finally got organized and a few of us started taking pulls.  One guy took a monster pull, about a mile long.  It finished him off though and he dropped shortly afterwards.  After this there were three of us pulling.  Then it seemed like I was the only one pulling.  I got tired of that after nobody would pull through so I sat up.  I told them that as far as I was concerned he should win the race, if they weren’t willing to pull I wasn’t either.  Afterall, why do all the work just to wear myself out and get dropped 500 yards before the finish.  At this point we could tell that the other guy was finished but it still made some other people start working.  Now I could set back for a minute and relax, at least I thought I could.  Next thing I knew two other people had a small gap on me so I had to work.  Now we were on the final short climb.  I caught the three people in front of me (breakaway guy and the two others) and I just started grinding and trying to not get dropped.  When I looked up (and back) there were only 8 of us and we were on the final straight stretch.  I was now the last man.  I had a nice wheel and I was happy until about 400 yards to go.  That was when the guy in front of me tucked in the pace line and left me in the wind.  I had no choice but to go.  I went around to the left with all I had, I have been in this situation before.  I was just waiting for everyone to go around me.  I glanced back and I didn’t see anyone, at this point I thought I may have a chance.  A second later I noticed that to my left there was a wheel approaching and it was approaching quick.  I stood up once more and gave it all that I had left, one last kick.  It was enough, I WON!!!!

 

The other racer congratulated me and once I got my breath we talked for a few minutes, very nice guy.

 

Anyway, sorry the report was so long and hopefully you didn’t fall asleep reading it.  It’s just that I don’t win very often so when I do I want to remember it in as much detail as possible. 

 

Hill repeats were much better this time out.

The past couple of weeks I have been working on my climbing.  I’ve been doing some repeats and just focusing on trying to keep my power somewhat consistant on them.  Last night I went out and did the same hill repeats that I did twelve days ago.  The climb is a little over a mile long and a little over 600 feet elevation gain.  I had approximately 2:15 recovery between each repeat for the ride back down to the bottom.

3/6/08 wattages on the repeats.  314, 305, 295, 294, 287
3/18/08 wattages on the repeats. 322, 313, 312, 312, 320

I had about a ten percent gain on the final climb.  I feel pretty good about the improvement, especially considering how early it is in the season.

A quick update about how much I suck……

I was asked to post an update by some sandbagger named Ben, so, here it is.  :p

 I have been doing a little riding/training since my last post, not nearly enough though.  At the time of that post I weighed approximately 195 pounds.  Since then I have put in right at 1,200 miles on the bike, approximately 30 hours at the gym, and I have lost 16 pounds.  Not too bad of a start I guess.  I was doing really well with my training up until about three weeks ago.  At that point we closed on a house, moved, and started investing countless hours and money into the money pit.  Things are coming together though.

 I have done one race, finished second in the cat 4/5 race out of approximately 20 racers.  What sucks is that I was actually stronger at that race over three weeks ago than I am now.  I’m working on that though.  My biggest problem is that for some reason I cannot force myself to get on the trainer.  I’m not sure what my problem is.  I am trying to get more motivated though and I’m sure that the time change is going to help me out.

Oh almost forgot, I did make it out for some hill repeats on Thursday.  I did 5 x 9(ish) minute repeats on a 1.1 mile climb in the area.  On the first climb I paced myself at 314 watts average, was supposed to be 300 watts.  Oops.  On the fifth climb I was down to 287 watts.  I suck!  Also, the first one took me 8:35, the final one took me almost 9:30.  I really, really suck!

Anyway, this is my lame ass attempt at an update.  Until next time……..

Just completed my lactic threshold test. It sucked!

I found a cool website called Infinit Computrainer Challenge that has different courses every week allowing you to compare your results against others using a Computrainer. The courses are not all races either, some are designed to keep you in a certain power zone so it will help with base training as well.

I did my first course this morning, a lactic threshold test. It hurt like hell! I got out of bed at 5:15, messed around on the computer for a few minutes then warmed up for 15 minutes before calibrating the computrainer. At that point I started the 11.19 mile course. It took me just under 30.5 minutes and let me tell you it hurt! I’m amazed at how much power I have lost after pretty much taking two months off. I’m also a little concerned at how much difference there is in the readings of my power tap and the computrainer.

Anyway, according to my pt my threshold was 265 (was 297). According to the computrainer my new threshold is 245 watts. I’m sure that will go up pretty quick now that I am back to training but it is still slightly depressing. My average heart rate was only 158 bpm, I’m just not able to push myself as hard as I would like right now. My previous threshold heart rate was 167 bpm.

I really look forward to watching my numbers come up, I think it is going to be kind of interesting to see how quick (or slow) they increase.

I won’t be doing any more workouts today, I am going out to dinner with some co-workers and a sells rep. Tomorrow morning I will do a leg workout then if I am able I will get back on the computrainer tomorrow evening.

First ride on the new CompuTrainer.

I picked up my new CompuTrainer Lab trainer yesterday afternoon.  I set it up, got everything running then jumped on it and did a 3 mile course and a 0.5 mile course to make sure everything was working properly.  I wouldn’t really call that a ride though.

This morning I got out of bed about 6:00 so I would have time to give it a real try.  I decided to try out the Sea Otter race course.  The course is 21.8 miles and has a good bit of climbing.  I figured this would be a nice test for it.  I was instantly amazed by this trainer, it is the least boring trainer I have ever been on.  In a way it actually makes training fun.  The flats are about like any trainer, the downhills are completely different though, it’s actually a lot like riding downhill.  The hills, now they are tough!  I couldn’t believe it but at times I was looking for an easier gear, unfortunately I didn’t have it though.  Some of the climbs were close to 16% and they actually felt like it.

By the time I finished I had ridden 20.8 miles in 81 minutes, burned 983 calories with an average heart rate of 149 bpm.  I had a terrible average wattage though, it was 205 watts.  I’m definitely out of shape.  According to the computrainer I had 4,866 feet of climbing.  It was definitely pretty cool!

All in all I have to say that I believe the computrainer is going to be a great investment for me.  I think it is going to help motivate me to get some training done.  I still have a lot to learn with it though.

Here is a picture of my setup.  In the future I will have a dvd playing on the second monitor.  Today I wanted to focus on the computrainer.

Survived another spin class.

Last night I made it to spin class, I don’t know how though, I was barely able to walk in the building. The only thing that helped me through was that the trainer that had me do all those god forsaken lunges was almost as sore as I was. It’s good to know that they didn’t just hurt me.

Anyway, he is the one that leads the spin class so I couldn’t back out. If I did he would make fun of me and call me names. I just can’t handle that.

I was able to make it through the spin class. It hurt quite a bit towards the beginning, then towards the middle it started to hurt about the same amount, at the end it let up to the point where it didn’t hurt any more or any less than it did when I started.    Unfortunately my legs wouldn’t let me get my heart rate up like I did in my previous session.  I maxed out around 165 bpm which is still in my zone 4.  I was able to burn close to 800 calories though so it wasn’t a complete loss.  The worst part was at the end when he had us do squat for 30 seconds, then another 30 seconds, then one more for 45 seconds. If I had hair I would have pulled it out at that point, I couldn’t have made it much longer.

Once I made it home I had a hamburger to give me a little protein, plus I hadn’t eaten nearly enough calories yesterday. After that I started watching the movie Hot Rod until I fell asleep. I woke up this morning still sore, decided that a day away from the gym will be a good thing. I will be leaving work early today to help with the Secret Santa bikes. Our bike club needs to build around 450 bikes this weekend. Should be fun, but I probably won’t be able to work out at all today.

The gremlins are trying to kill me!

I was actually able to get a couple of hours of sleep last night, sort of suprised me.  Everytime I moved I felt like I had a gremlin in my legs with a jagged knife and a rusty old pair of pliers cutting and ripping at my quads.  When I did finally decide to get up I almost collapsed, the level of pain in my legs was amazing.  However, none of this pain compared to when I tried lowering myself on to the toilet for my morning visit to the library.  I was almost in tears!

By the time I made it to the gym I was convinced that I was nuts, not nearly as convinced as my wife though.  I managed to suffer through 30 minutes on the elliptical machine thinking that it might loosen me up a little.  It worked for a little while but it didn’t last.  By the time I made it out of the shower the pain was back.  The 1/4 mile walk from my truck to my office just about killed me.  The gremlins were back!

Tonights spinning class is going to suck!

I met Satan today, and he sucks!

Okay, I think I met Satan today. He is the trainer at the gym / sponsor of our race team for next year. I ride with him quite a bit, go to his spin classes and hang out with him from time to time. Generally a very nice guy, at least until today.

I get to the gym and they are getting ready to have a group workout thing. He tells me to jump in so I decided to give it a try. It wasn’t really the type workout that I was after but figured what the heck, a nice rest day would be nice. Afterall, it was just a few women and a couple of older (heavier) gentlemen.

Satan (aka Jeremy) hands me two 30 pound dumb bells. He gives everyone else 15 - 25 pounders. I figured how good of a workout could anyone get with 30 pound weights, boy did I find out. The workout conisted of curls, military presses, lunges, and sumo squats. It started off doing one of each, lunges one each leg. Next set was two of each, etc, etc. The goal was to make it to ten of each exercise. By the time I made it to four my legs were starting to cramp up. Five was miserable, six I was seeing stars. At eight all I could do was think about how evil that SOB was. I hated life. I didn’t make it to ten. He let me stop at eight, well not exactly stop. Next I did seven, then six, then five, etc, etc.

Needless to say, by the time we were finished I would have loved to have had some five pound weights. Those thirty pounders felt like they weighed 100 pounds each. I dreaded each time he finished his set and handed me the weights.

Once I finished I jumped on the treadmill a few minutes to stretch out a little then I took a shower. After the shower I sat down and I thought my legs were going to fall off. I could barely get out of the chair. My legs were shaking, trying to cramp. I did finally get up and somehow managed to walk to my truck. Getting in it was a real challenge, if that wasn’t bad enough each time I pushed in the clutch I felt like screaming. I finally made it to my parking spot at work. Next challenge, walk 1/4 mile from my parking spot to the office. Somehow I made it but I cursed Satan out every step of the way.

Right now I am setting in my chair in ten different types of pain. I can’t wait for my next workout. The only thing I look forward to more is the next time we head out for a road ride, I’m picking the route!