I have been taking some well needed rest off of the bicycle. The past week October 10 and the 11 I rode a bit. Not much though, due to shorter days and not being equipped with lights keeps weekly rides shorter. The two days during the week were with Ryan and Monday was completely an easy ride and Tuesday had some intensity, then I was off the bike till Sunday for the Loberg Century.
The Loberg Century is a ride that Erik invites all of his friends and then some too. He has snacks a sag vehicle and a planed course with certain stop points. It is always held early fall, so weather could be a factor. This is my third year in it, first year I rode it three years ago and last year I was injured so I drove the sag car and this year I was able to ride it again. This year the temperature was in the 50's which is pleasant, but very very windy. It was a small group of 11 riders, which I believe is the smallest group so far.
There is one road that is gravel with some tarmac which is really fun! You are going down hill and has some pretty sharp curves and adding the gravel makes it a bit tricky, but if you have some skills you get through it easily, as long as you stay in your comfort zone. One kid rode out of his comfort zone and crashed on this road. He is okay, and has some road rash. We stopped at a gas station and he was able to get cleaned up. He then rode in the car for a while until rest stop #3, then he rode with us to rest stop #4. Not sure how long he rode with us after that.
This year we stopped at Erik's house and he had someone grilling hot dogs, this was rest stop #4. This was very nice of him to do this!
After rest stop #4, Ben and Dan were putting the hurt on me with the tailwind. We only had about 15 miles till we were finished and they were pushing the pace, OUCH.
All in all what a great ride and hopefully more people can make it next year!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Weekend?
Where do the weekends go? It is truly amazing how fast they go! Saturday I started the day out right, with a ride with a good friend (Ryan). It was cool (@40 degrees and wet), and believe it or not, I did over dress a bit. I had on some embrocation jersey and a jacket, bottom half I had just leg warmers on. We rode up to Greenbush and then over to Plymouth where we got a quick bite and I stripped off by legwarmers. We were both on a bit of a time crunch so I had to push the pace a bit on the way back. I rode just under 70 miles and was pretty much finished after the ride. No break after I got home though.
As soon as I got changed into some dry clothes I had to go to the store to get some fertilizer for my yard and get that laid down, before more rain moved in. That got finished and then I had to make some Lemon Bars for a block party that we were suppose to have, but was cancelled due to the weather. Which I managed to fail according to my wife's standards. I didn't use the right pan and I laid the crust wrong. WTF! You are welcome by the way! HA HA. They tasted really good and didn't make it through the weekend, so I couldn't have messed it up that bad. So, since our party was cancelled, Tammy and I did some laundry went shopping and watched a movie.
Sunday, I opted to ride in my basement since the weather was very unpleasant. I got started and then my wife joined me 10 minutes later. I didn't ride as long as I wanted to but, it was a good ride. There will be plenty of time to ride in the basement, no need to start by drilling it in the basement yet. After the ride it was time to get ready for the Breweres game. We met at my sister-in-laws place and then went to Cache 22, had lunch and then went to the game. Good game, they won, and then back to my sister-in-law's place to finish watching the Packers. Went home right after the game, ate supper watched a little TV and then bed.
Another weekend come and gone! It was a great weekend, just to short.
As soon as I got changed into some dry clothes I had to go to the store to get some fertilizer for my yard and get that laid down, before more rain moved in. That got finished and then I had to make some Lemon Bars for a block party that we were suppose to have, but was cancelled due to the weather. Which I managed to fail according to my wife's standards. I didn't use the right pan and I laid the crust wrong. WTF! You are welcome by the way! HA HA. They tasted really good and didn't make it through the weekend, so I couldn't have messed it up that bad. So, since our party was cancelled, Tammy and I did some laundry went shopping and watched a movie.
Sunday, I opted to ride in my basement since the weather was very unpleasant. I got started and then my wife joined me 10 minutes later. I didn't ride as long as I wanted to but, it was a good ride. There will be plenty of time to ride in the basement, no need to start by drilling it in the basement yet. After the ride it was time to get ready for the Breweres game. We met at my sister-in-laws place and then went to Cache 22, had lunch and then went to the game. Good game, they won, and then back to my sister-in-law's place to finish watching the Packers. Went home right after the game, ate supper watched a little TV and then bed.
Another weekend come and gone! It was a great weekend, just to short.
Friday, September 23, 2011
On the Rise
My training is going well. This month I have tested different zones to see where I am at strength/weaknesses. For being a Cat. 3 racer all my power zones 5 sec., 1 min., 5 min., and 20 min F.T. the program says that I am a strong Cat. 4 racer. WOW, that is like a kick in the balls, that will put a person into perspective if they/me are feeling strong.
Anyways, I did a 20 min. F.T. (functional threshold) test last night and by the way the last one I did was at the end of March. My training this week lead up to this meaning that Monday was off, Tuesday I did a little warm up for the test and Wed. I did a short workout keeping the legs fresh and ready to work. So, with the prior workouts I didn't have a very good feeling about my test, felt weak or well at least felt that I wasn't going to be as strong as I was in March.
I did my little warm up before doing the test and I still really wasn't feeling it. I am still practicing the pacing of this workout, which can make or break you. The first 5 min. I started 15 watts lower than what I thought I could hold for the whole this. The next 5 min. I ramped it up just a little and did it again the next 5 min. and then the last 5 min. I went even harder all the way to the end time. These workouts are very hard physically and mentally. Wow, that was tough, but WOW I beat my power, new high for me this year.
My power didn't go up a lot, went up 8 watts, but in my mind up is always a good thing. I know it is the end of the year for me and I don't have any races in the near future, so I need to watch myself not to over train at all and give myself a break.
How am I doing this? By using my Training Peaks Software and watching my TSS (train stress score). I am very new at this program and am still learning how to use it and having it make sense to me is even more of a challenge.
So, with this software I download my workout and then I can analyze just about everything in my workout. I compared this FT test to March's and what I did notice was in March I jacked my HR up and held it there. This time it was on the rise the whole way and never maxing out. What does that mean? Not sure, but if I were to guess, I would think I could have gone a little harder. My avg. hr for this time was @ 10 beats lower than March's. My cadence was high this time, which makes sense, because I have been conscious about working on upping my cadence, and my power was up, so all in all, I will call this a win in my training. I am hoping to rise my F.T. through out the winter with out over training and only time will tell how this work out for me.
Anyways, I did a 20 min. F.T. (functional threshold) test last night and by the way the last one I did was at the end of March. My training this week lead up to this meaning that Monday was off, Tuesday I did a little warm up for the test and Wed. I did a short workout keeping the legs fresh and ready to work. So, with the prior workouts I didn't have a very good feeling about my test, felt weak or well at least felt that I wasn't going to be as strong as I was in March.
I did my little warm up before doing the test and I still really wasn't feeling it. I am still practicing the pacing of this workout, which can make or break you. The first 5 min. I started 15 watts lower than what I thought I could hold for the whole this. The next 5 min. I ramped it up just a little and did it again the next 5 min. and then the last 5 min. I went even harder all the way to the end time. These workouts are very hard physically and mentally. Wow, that was tough, but WOW I beat my power, new high for me this year.
My power didn't go up a lot, went up 8 watts, but in my mind up is always a good thing. I know it is the end of the year for me and I don't have any races in the near future, so I need to watch myself not to over train at all and give myself a break.
How am I doing this? By using my Training Peaks Software and watching my TSS (train stress score). I am very new at this program and am still learning how to use it and having it make sense to me is even more of a challenge.
So, with this software I download my workout and then I can analyze just about everything in my workout. I compared this FT test to March's and what I did notice was in March I jacked my HR up and held it there. This time it was on the rise the whole way and never maxing out. What does that mean? Not sure, but if I were to guess, I would think I could have gone a little harder. My avg. hr for this time was @ 10 beats lower than March's. My cadence was high this time, which makes sense, because I have been conscious about working on upping my cadence, and my power was up, so all in all, I will call this a win in my training. I am hoping to rise my F.T. through out the winter with out over training and only time will tell how this work out for me.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Roller training
Last night the weather was a bit wet, so I opted to stay dry and train in my basement on my rollers. I know.....it is a bit early to want to train in the basement, but hey, I didn't want to get wet, and it was a bit cool out. I didn't feel like putting on some of my cooler riding gear.
Anyways, I only rode for 1hr 15min. and tried to do some sprints. This doesn't work properly on rollers. I tried to stand and do one that didn't work, and I kept playing with what may work best and what I came up with was to do them sitting and play around with the gearing, so I wasn't shifting.
I managed to get it figured out, not producing the watts that I can outside, but hey I am doing these sitting down. Still a workout right? I do have to say that you could only try do produce enough power with my roller set up. What do I mean? Well, I have Kreitler rollers system and the drum size is 2 1/4"dia. with the head wind. Having the smaller diameter drum and the head wind gives me more resistance to produce higher watts.
Workout went well, need another big fan though.
Kind of wish I was racing Gateway Cup this weekend, but will be missing it this year and hopefully do next year. My mom is flying in from Arizona today and will be seeing her this weekend. My little bro turns 22 too this weekend, so will be celebrating that too.
Thanks for reading and sorry for wasting your time.
Anyways, I only rode for 1hr 15min. and tried to do some sprints. This doesn't work properly on rollers. I tried to stand and do one that didn't work, and I kept playing with what may work best and what I came up with was to do them sitting and play around with the gearing, so I wasn't shifting.
I managed to get it figured out, not producing the watts that I can outside, but hey I am doing these sitting down. Still a workout right? I do have to say that you could only try do produce enough power with my roller set up. What do I mean? Well, I have Kreitler rollers system and the drum size is 2 1/4"dia. with the head wind. Having the smaller diameter drum and the head wind gives me more resistance to produce higher watts.
Workout went well, need another big fan though.
Kind of wish I was racing Gateway Cup this weekend, but will be missing it this year and hopefully do next year. My mom is flying in from Arizona today and will be seeing her this weekend. My little bro turns 22 too this weekend, so will be celebrating that too.
Thanks for reading and sorry for wasting your time.
Monday, August 22, 2011
2011 Goal Met
Sunday August 21st was my third Race the Lake expierience. The day starts very early, alarm went off at 3:45am, I get out of bed and started preparing my food and drinks for the race. Then I put all my stuff outside sipping my coffee and waiting for my ride (Ryan Pokorny). We were on the road by 4:30am and up at the races in Fond Du Lac @ 5am. We parked by some other team mates, and then we went and had them mark us with our numbers.
We lined up @ 5:40am and were off by @ 5:50am. This is third time doing this race and this year is the slowest start so far. We were going so slow that wave 2 caught up to us. I am not going to complain becasue you won't catch me going to the front and do any pulling, well at least not until we are passed High Cliff Park. This is the dredded climb about half way through the race. I didn't loose any bottles this year, I put 2 in my jersey pockets and one in my down tube. This kept my seat post cage open, this is the one that it falls out of. I did run someone's bottle over in the race. Once we were passed Oshkosh I put a bottle in the seat post cage and put the other bottle into the middle jersey pocket.
I saw one really bad crash that I was able to avoid, by just squeezing through a hole that openned up at the last second, otherwise I would have been in that pile. I knew I had a team mate by me and hoped that everyone made it through ok. Before High Cliff they ramped up the pace a bit and one of my goals for this year was to make it up the climb with the main group. On the climb I kept it in the big ring knowing that if I would put it in my small ring that I would be going even slower up the climb. I kept passing people and mentally telling myself to keep pushing, I was with a very small group at the top, but we managed to catch back onto the main field. I am going to say that this is close enough to the main field on the climb and say that my "GOAL" was met. I guess there was a group of 6 that got off the front after the climb.
The rest of the race was pretty fast and I just raced smart for the most part. There were a lot of surges and guys trying to start a chase group, but nothing was working. At one point I did feel strong enough and was in a short lived pace line. Getting towards the end of the race it was a very big field, probably close to 80 racers and I was a bit concerned on how this was going to finish out. Crash or no crash? I made it through the last two corners up right and started sprinting, well, if that is even what you would call it after 90 miles in the saddle. Not an impressive sprint, but I did pass people before I crossed the finish line.
I finished 39th overall, 6th in my age bracket, my time was 3:25:23.7, and my average overall speed was 26mph. All in all race went very well for me and I am really excited on how I finished. Coaching really helped, so I would like to thank Jeff Melcher at Cycling Form and Fitness for his service.
We also placed 2nd as a mixed gender team!
Down side, Ryan was involved in that one crash and didn't finish the race, his was smashed with a chain ring and need stitches and may need a MRI if he doesn't get any better in about 3 days. So, I hope he recovers quickly!
What is next, don't know, just going to have some fun!
Later
We lined up @ 5:40am and were off by @ 5:50am. This is third time doing this race and this year is the slowest start so far. We were going so slow that wave 2 caught up to us. I am not going to complain becasue you won't catch me going to the front and do any pulling, well at least not until we are passed High Cliff Park. This is the dredded climb about half way through the race. I didn't loose any bottles this year, I put 2 in my jersey pockets and one in my down tube. This kept my seat post cage open, this is the one that it falls out of. I did run someone's bottle over in the race. Once we were passed Oshkosh I put a bottle in the seat post cage and put the other bottle into the middle jersey pocket.
I saw one really bad crash that I was able to avoid, by just squeezing through a hole that openned up at the last second, otherwise I would have been in that pile. I knew I had a team mate by me and hoped that everyone made it through ok. Before High Cliff they ramped up the pace a bit and one of my goals for this year was to make it up the climb with the main group. On the climb I kept it in the big ring knowing that if I would put it in my small ring that I would be going even slower up the climb. I kept passing people and mentally telling myself to keep pushing, I was with a very small group at the top, but we managed to catch back onto the main field. I am going to say that this is close enough to the main field on the climb and say that my "GOAL" was met. I guess there was a group of 6 that got off the front after the climb.
The rest of the race was pretty fast and I just raced smart for the most part. There were a lot of surges and guys trying to start a chase group, but nothing was working. At one point I did feel strong enough and was in a short lived pace line. Getting towards the end of the race it was a very big field, probably close to 80 racers and I was a bit concerned on how this was going to finish out. Crash or no crash? I made it through the last two corners up right and started sprinting, well, if that is even what you would call it after 90 miles in the saddle. Not an impressive sprint, but I did pass people before I crossed the finish line.
I finished 39th overall, 6th in my age bracket, my time was 3:25:23.7, and my average overall speed was 26mph. All in all race went very well for me and I am really excited on how I finished. Coaching really helped, so I would like to thank Jeff Melcher at Cycling Form and Fitness for his service.
We also placed 2nd as a mixed gender team!
Down side, Ryan was involved in that one crash and didn't finish the race, his was smashed with a chain ring and need stitches and may need a MRI if he doesn't get any better in about 3 days. So, I hope he recovers quickly!
What is next, don't know, just going to have some fun!
Later
Monday, August 15, 2011
Menasha Crit. 8-14-11
What a beautiful day! I headed up to Menasha with my coach Jeff Melcher from Cycling Form and Fitness, we did the M1,2,3 race. Weather was perfect, not crazy winds and temperature was perfect. The venue was great, they had food and beverages for purchase, a pace car and a stage with podium boxes(for a WCA race that is nice). The O2 guys did a great job!
The course was flat with one false flat straight, was a nice course with good roads.
I haven't raced since T.o.A.D. and that was back in June, so I was brushing up on some of my pack skills before the big race this coming weekend (Race the Lake). Not, that it was a big pack by all means with only 22 or so racers in my race.
The race was very tactical with guys trying to make a break work, guys were constantly attacking and chasing and finally one got away. It definitely takes the right combination to make it work. I did my fair share of trying to bridge and was successful a time or two, but I was getting tired. I also spent quite a bit of time on the front too. Didn't do a great job of stacking zero's.
If you find your self on the front, I find it positive, because that means your fitness is good enough to be there and you are riding/racing fast enough to keep other racers from coming around. When I was on the front I was staying with in myself, so I was trying to race as smart as possible without completely blowing up.
Anyways, back to the race, so there were attack after attack, until finally a small group of four where of the front and then there was a chase group and they didn't succeed and where all absorbed back into the main pack of about 18.I was on the front of the main group for a lap or two around 5 or 6 laps left and this is not where I wanted or needed to be. So, what did I do you ask? I started going slower and slower until finally someone attacked and then I jumped and got into someones draft. With two to go I was in a decent position and had a good position again with one to go. The last lap was relatively slow for half of it and then it took off, I was kind of boxed in when guys started to jump, but I did manage to pass a couple before the finish line. I finished well (10th), that is a best for me in this classification, so I am very pleased with the results from myself and my coaching. Jeff finished 7th and was in the money.
Up next is Race the Lake, this is August 21st and it is a 90 mile road race around Lake Winnebago.
The course was flat with one false flat straight, was a nice course with good roads.
I haven't raced since T.o.A.D. and that was back in June, so I was brushing up on some of my pack skills before the big race this coming weekend (Race the Lake). Not, that it was a big pack by all means with only 22 or so racers in my race.
The race was very tactical with guys trying to make a break work, guys were constantly attacking and chasing and finally one got away. It definitely takes the right combination to make it work. I did my fair share of trying to bridge and was successful a time or two, but I was getting tired. I also spent quite a bit of time on the front too. Didn't do a great job of stacking zero's.
If you find your self on the front, I find it positive, because that means your fitness is good enough to be there and you are riding/racing fast enough to keep other racers from coming around. When I was on the front I was staying with in myself, so I was trying to race as smart as possible without completely blowing up.
Anyways, back to the race, so there were attack after attack, until finally a small group of four where of the front and then there was a chase group and they didn't succeed and where all absorbed back into the main pack of about 18.I was on the front of the main group for a lap or two around 5 or 6 laps left and this is not where I wanted or needed to be. So, what did I do you ask? I started going slower and slower until finally someone attacked and then I jumped and got into someones draft. With two to go I was in a decent position and had a good position again with one to go. The last lap was relatively slow for half of it and then it took off, I was kind of boxed in when guys started to jump, but I did manage to pass a couple before the finish line. I finished well (10th), that is a best for me in this classification, so I am very pleased with the results from myself and my coaching. Jeff finished 7th and was in the money.
Up next is Race the Lake, this is August 21st and it is a 90 mile road race around Lake Winnebago.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Switching Gears
I am getting geared up for Race the Lake on August 21st. This is a 90 miles road race around Lake Winnebago. This will be the third year that I will be doing it, I like this race a lot, I think it is really FUN! I like it because the field size is huge and it reminds me of a Pro tour stage, because it is cyclists from should to center line with 100 plus racers in the first wave. It is such a rush the feeling you get from being in such a big group and just being pulled along in the draft.
So, my training has changed a bit and I have been putting in longer rides especially on the weekends.
I have not been racing and it feels like my last race has been forever ago. The last race I did do was the State Criterium Championship. I am going to keep trying to get long rides in on the weekend and get some good recovery during the week. I am actually going to pre-ride the course on Saturday, looks to be a good weekend for riding.
Later
So, my training has changed a bit and I have been putting in longer rides especially on the weekends.
I have not been racing and it feels like my last race has been forever ago. The last race I did do was the State Criterium Championship. I am going to keep trying to get long rides in on the weekend and get some good recovery during the week. I am actually going to pre-ride the course on Saturday, looks to be a good weekend for riding.
Later
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