Thursday, November 13, 2008

Upcoming Bike Stuff

I am going to start doing intervals and such next week. Guess I'll be figuring this out on my own this year - that friend/mentor/coach guy isn't going to help me any this year I don't think....good thing I took good notes last year when I started training.

Tenative schedule for next week....
Monday: zone 4 (168-195w) intervals - 4x8min with 5min rest between the intervals. Try to keep the cadence > 95.
Tuesday: zone 2 (104-140w) recovery ride - incorporate 4 powerstarts every 5min. Cadence > 95.
Wednesday: gym. 30min swim and 30min weights.
Thursday: zone 2 ride with high cadence drills (>120, low watts). 4x2min drills, 5min rest.
Friday: 1 hour ride with 4x3min zone 5 (196-223w) intervals. 6min rest between intervals. Cadence > 100.
Saturday: zone 3 tempo ride (141-167w). Try to get 2 hours in.
Sunday: No road bike today. Possibly take cross bike to Umstead and ride for 1.5hr. Possible gym before or after Umstead.

All of the above is tenative, as far as the wattage...I'm tempted to go out this Saturday or Sunday and perform an FTP test. I sorta think the wattages I've listed above might be slightly low, but not 100% sure.

I'll also have to do these rides during my lunch time. That's gonna mean that I will have to work till probably 5:30 cause I'm not sure I can get all of that stuff done in an hour with a 10min warmup/cooldown. Oh well, gotta do whatcha gotta do.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Afternoon Ride With The Guys

So, today, I had planned on going for a ride after I got my hair cut at 12:30. Wasn't really sure where I'd ride, but had thoughts of doing the Zack Attack route and maybe adding a few miles to it. But, while I was at the bank taking care of some stuff, I got a call from my friend Jay wanting to know if I had played hookey today. :)

He told me that Lawrence and a couple of guys were riding from Lawrence's house and I should come on out...but, but, I have a hair appt! Screw that! Get your priorties straight!! :) OK. So called and canceled the appt, rushed home, changed clothes and loaded up the bike stuff. Got over to Lawrence's house with a little time to spare. It was Lawrence, Jay, Jason, and myself initially and we picked Bobby up on the way.

It was a beautiful day today and a great ride down to the Four Oaks area. A nice relaxed pace - the boys must be gearing down for easy winter rides. Don't know how much elevation change we had - will have to ask Jay, but there were a few short steep climbs and I just picked a point out on them where I told myself "your gonna get outa the saddle and power on up this climb". It worked every time! I'm so proud of myself! There was one climb on the way back, on Steel Bridge Road that was very difficult last year prior to all my training. I crushed it. Hell yes. Stood up and crushed that mother.

That's it for my day. Have to check out the weather forecast for this weekend.....hope to get a ride in Saturday and one Sunday from the Carolina Brewing Co.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Hey

I've been pretty damn slack about keeping this updated. I'm going to really try to keep it more up-to-date once I start the triathlon training the week after Thanksgiving.

So, what's happened since my last post?? I rode Tour de Nantahala on October 25 and the Tour de Franklin on October 26. Both were very good rides and had lots of climbing. TdN was a great ride, only 4 turns on the route. One major climb up Wayah Road. Holy cow, that mutha was one never ending climb, but I managed to do it without stopping. I guess I did pretty well - Andy and Neal were waiting just down the other side of the crest in the sun and told me that no one else had come down yet. They had been waiting about 10min I think. So, I actually did do ok! :)

TdN stats:
5:05hr ride time
70mi
13.77mph pace
6030' climbing

Tour de Franklin was the next day and it was a very cold start for me. I forgot my gloves and borrowed a pair from Andy. Not much help, as my fingers froze. I was so cold that I had thoughts of bagging the ride, but, I am not a quitter, so I pedaled on. My legs were hurting really bad for the first 30mi or so. Too many beers the night before at Andy's and not drinking enough for that first segment was the culprit. I started drinking more after the first rest stop and felt much better.

There were 2 major climbs on this ride: Skeena, which is .75mi and, I think, around 9.x% average grade. I crushed this one!! The last time I rode Skeena, it took me 10:30min to climb it (August). This time I did it in 8:30min - knocking 2 min off my time! Yay!! One more climb...Standing Indian. OMG. This was 4.5 to 5mi in length and of similar grade. This was one really hard climb. Didn't think I would ever get to the top. But, eventually made it! Nice descent down Winding Stairs and then the straight shot down US 64 back to the start.

TdF stats:
4:40hr ride time
65mi
13.9mph pace
5200'+/- climbing

Finished up with a shower at Andy's house and left around 4:15 for the long drive home.

Since then...not too damn much. I seem to have lost my motivation to ride lately. Maybe it was the time change, dunno. Structure and having to report to someone about my training rides was the greatest motivation last year. This year, I guess I'm on my own since I signed up for IM Cozumel. /rolleyes/ Speaking of that...I'm going to start actual training the week after Thanksgiving, but until then, I'll try to get a few more rides in and maybe some running. I'm going to probably use some form of one or more of the training programs on Beginnertriathlete.com and I've got a couple of books on the subject. Hopefully, I'll be able to figure out a training plan.

Guess that's about it for now...