Is anyone talkin' trash yet?

I was thinking about the 2010 season and reflecting a bit on past years. A few things occured to me. I have spent years worth of warm weather weekends training or racing and/or being outside. I did my first triathlon and road race in the first half of 2001. Sheesh! In my adult life I don't actually know any different.

What I do know is that I have several alternate hobbies/interests that would take the place of endurance sports. For instance sportbike racing. I have a 900cc crotch rocket that has put me in the Intermediate Class of the Northeast Sportbike Association at a local race track (Summit Point, WV). Another is powerlifting. My body responds well to whole "massive" training regime, it can be fun to get a little crazy. Another would be lacrosse. I played for a hell of a long time and would easily be doing summer leagues. In fact, I coached it before and I would probably have my own high school team at this point. Another alternate hobby is guns. I would probably do competitive shooting, seriously. Those guys get so geeked about about their expensive equipment (sound familiar?) it's ridiculous. A final alternate hobby would be carpentry. I am not talking about just framing a wall, but real craftsman type stuff. I would have a side business and probably work with reclaimed/recycled/reused wood to do beautiful projects.

However, not even the most tempting alternates have pulled me away from racing bikes. I have tried to document my off-season efforts. Actual exercise routines, reps, numbers, etc. I posted how my FTP went up 21 Watts just by riding up Skyline Drive.

At this point in the early season we can have hearts filled with dread or the promise of great races and results. I have been at both extremes and now I am monitoring where my heart is for the 2010 season.

I have good friends with whom I keep accountable. I know that I am excited for each of my teammates to get a win and for all of us to race cohesively. But I am a competitive bastard.
I had too unique of an off-season to be truly confident. I am worried about being too heavy and what the gym routines will do to my performance. I am NOT talking trash yet. I have to wait and see how Richmond-Nature's Path 1/2/3 feels and how Tyson's 3 feels.

So how about you? Are you dreading it? Telling yourself that you will "race into shape" (HAHAHA). Or are you feeling that edge. Are you fully aware that you have already earned a great season because you have been disciplined since last August (like Steven Wahl's 2009 off-season). Are you ready to start talkin' trash?

Finally got outside! 2x! Online Ride Player link + Power profile. 17,000 Watts?

Here is Power data and altitude data. The yellow line is at 300W.

But here is a cool Garmin feature! You can see the route and all data at Connect.Garmin.com
Here, connect.garmin.com, it shows a 17000 spike in wattage. I have no idea why, I cannot find that spike in WKO+.

It was a cool day. Saw some very cool stuff and got to ride with teammates that I don't get to see that often. we did about 70 miles. It was my second ride outside in almost a month.

UPDATE: I used Excel to open the .TCX file and manually deleted the cells with impossible power data- I subsituted the average of the cells before and after. However, I have to delete the currect file that is there (linked above) before I can upload the edited file. I will do that later.

Same old bike, but here is where I spent my equipment budget: Moving Parts.

Our sponsor is the best, Bike Doctor, and my teammates are a great bunch of guys.
Through sweet sponsorship and teammates' connections this is where the cash for 2010 went:
1. Shoes: Shimano R- 300, heat shrink mold. I broke my shoes crashing out last year, and borrowed a pair of nike shoes from my brother (that I gave to him) that I ride in the meantime. Not yet in use.
2. Chain. Dura-ace 7800. Not yet in use.
3. Crankset. 175 Dura-ace 7900: longer than my 172.5's. Sold the other cranks to Fife and he installed my new cranks for me.
4. Bottom bracket: Dura-ace. Not yet in use.
5. Pedals/cleats (birthday present). I also got the speedplay grease gun so I PROMISE I will maintain them properly. Not yet in use.

Soon to come:
Wheel bearings. I am not going to get ceramics. I race with Mavic Carbone's Powertap. I am just getting really good stainless bearings.


I am waiting to get the shoes molded and install the rest of the stuff. I want to wait to use all of the new stuff until I am nearing race fitness and know what my 2010 power numbers are like. Last year I hit the goon ride with a new bottom bracket and easily crushed my PEAK 5 MIN POWER, it was remarkable. I think the placebo effect helps too.

Otherwise I have the same SRAM Red cassette. The I might get a new rear derailleur or just replace the little wheels, just a little obsessive to make the moving parts thing complete.

rest days (2) after 5 days of trainer videos... Feb 12 and 13. Massage heals.

I was surprised that I made it through all of those tapes.

Training Stress Scores went like this:
108.8 (CTS Crit video)
76.8 (CTS TT video)
97.8 (CTS Climbing)
92.3 (CTS Sprinting)
101.0 (Spinervals 5.0)
I took 2 days off because of travel.

I got a pretty good massage on Saturday FEb 13. I winced on some the quad and calf work.

Thurs Feb 11. Spinervals 5.0 Mental Toughness, power profile

This was day 5 in a row of trainer tapes. I am getting tired, but I NEED my Chronic Training Load (CTL) also thought of as fitness.
I would like to point out that this tape is constant, the only break is when you get off the bike for isometric squats. I did one of them (there are 2 x 90sec). OTherwise it is tempo with 1 min rest in between stuff... that's the mental challenge. You could crush yourself with this video.
This tape is more a mental challenge than others, my kJ was higher and my Normalized power was 257 but there were more kJ burned because it was a constant workload.

There are so many different brief reps that I will get into them later if I feel like it.

Joe Friel took his new TT bike to the wind tunnel in NC

I am quite jealous. This kid featured above on the Trek-Livestrong U23 team is rocking out on some serious TT gear. I am also jealous because SOME got to hit the wind tunnel.

Joe comes out looking like Levi, I think. Read about it here.

Feb. 10th, CTS Sprinting Tape. Power Profile (Day 4 of CTS Tapes)

Just by looking at the profile above, you know that a sprint focused workout is very different from other workouts. The yellow line above is at 300W. I spent most of the workout WAY below 300W.
These workouts are tough because of the "downtime" between each effort. I wanted to burn about 1000kJ like I had on the past three days (CTS Crit, Climbing, & TT), but because of the sprinting, I struggled to get 750kJ (I add a long warm-up and sometimes a 10-15 minute "endurance" zone interval at the end).
I gotta say I haven't even thought about PEAK watts in a hell of a long time. Of all the workouts I do on trainer, this is the LEAST analogous to being out on the road. I say that because sprinting involves the whole body: pulling hard on the bars, throwing the bike, serious core efforts, etc. When the bike in stuck vertical none of those things can happen. But, there are some interesting parts, like 125-130 cadence "AGILITY" sprints.
Best part of the workout: 60-20-10. Hold steady power for 60 seconds, then act like you are on your own leadout train for 20 seconds, then rip out of the saddle and drill it for 10 seconds. On the graph above these are the last two spikes over 300W. I was horrible on these, I tried to hold too high a wattage (relative to my fitness) for the first 60 seconds.
Oh well.
Had a great weigh-in today. February is supposed to be a month of calorie deficit.

Feb. 9, CTS Climbing tape, Power profile, wheel elevated.

So today was day 3 in a row of Carmichael Training Systems Indoor Training Tapes.
I put my front wheel about 4 inches up beyond where the bike sits level.
This tape starts with a a pair of 30 seconds warm-up reps.
(click on image for a blow-up)
RED LINE HEART RATE, line at 174 BPM
GREEN LINE CADENCE, line at 90 RPM
YELLOW LINE POWER, line at 300Watts.
First "MUSCLE TENSION" intervals were two at 5 minutes each, with 5 minutes rest.
They are called MUSCLE TENSION because of the super-low cadence. I was in my 53x11, thats just how my leaky oil Cyclops wind trainer is.
1- 5 min, 332 NP, avg cadence 65 rpm.
5 RBI
2- 5 min, 331 NP, avg cadence 65 rpm.
5 RBI
3-10 min, 306 NP (304W avg), avg cadence 81 rpm.
5 RBI
4-9 min (he says its 10 min but it is only 9 min) hi-lo cadence change each minute
305W NP, (297W avg), cadences were 92-ish or 63-ish. See chart.


Last three workouts were Crit tape, TT tape, and Climbing tape, TSS scores were 108.8, 76.8, and 97.8.
IF scores were .846, .742, and .835.

I will try and do the Sprinting tape tomorrow.

Feb. 8, CTS TT Video, power profile

I went with another extended warmup. Hit the two 1 min warm-ups, then rested for the beginning sets.
Video starts with three 5min intervals, with 5min rest-between-intervals (RBI).
I picked a wattage that I thought would be the lowest of the three, I chose pretty well. Got to take each interval a little higher than before.
The other exercise in this video is a 12 min interval. Starts off with a higher cadence for the first two, then a lower cadence for the next two minutes...etc. 3 hi, 3 lo, all at a set wattage.

I think I aimed low for all four intervals. However, heart rate was supposed to be contained.. like a good 40k TT pace.
1st 5min: 295 NP
2nd 5min: 297 NP
3rd 5min: 308 NP
12 min: about 264 NP.

Date: 2/7 Video: CTS Crit Data: Power Profile a la: brilf style

After a substantial warm-up. This tape wastes no time. The first two spikes are warm-ups by 1 min.

The best part of this tape is the 7 reps of 2 min power, with only 1 min in between. I decided to drill it, with the expectation that I would fall off. I NEEDED that kind of effort today.
The next 3 reps are 2 min hi/lo aka steady-power-steady-power. 30 seconds each to add up to 2 minutes. 2 min rest in between.

The last 5 are suicidal 1 minuite efforts with ZERO, oops, I mean 30 seconds in between. These are loco.

Power and HR fall off through most of the reps... lack of fitness- this is good to know.