Jeff

First Road Race of the Season

Bottom Line:  5th place of 44 people at Ken Woods Cat 4 road race (2 laps of a 21 mi course)

Download:  My legs have just not had the fire that I had at camp.  I should have been able to put more in during the race, thus better result (maybe not 1st but 3rd).  There are a couple things I know I can work on.  The wind was not that bad so I decided to ride the Jet 60's thus no power data. 

There is a decent sized hill not too far from the finish that created the selection on the first lap. I was too far from the front to catch the first 3 guys and ended up in the second group of like 7.  We chased the entire 2nd lap and shed all but 4 guys plus passed one the guys that got dropped from the front three.  Up the big hill two of the guys in my group had more in the tank.  Thus 5th.

Lessons Learned:
1.  Get my ass to the front of the pack and stay there especially when it is slow
2.  Save a little more energy in the break
3.  Be ready when guys jump to catch there wheels better (will probably incorporate some drills in my training for this)

Next Steps:
I tried to ride today, but just couldn't get the power up, so I stopped 1 minute into my set.  I will take tomorrow off completely and see from there.  I have had a ton of outside of training stress (switching jobs & other stuff) thus I just need to recover a little.

Regards,
Jeff

More Camp

So a questions was asked for more detail around camp.  So here goes.

While we were on the flat sections I would vary my location in the group either up in the front or in the back helping to pull guys back into the group if they dropped back for some reason.

I made a point to try and push each of the hills.  On both days it was a mix of pulling on the front or sitting on 2nd or 3rd wheel.  I used the PowerTap to help pace me on the hills.  One hill I can remember clearly was 7min long and since I was already in the front I just keeping pulling for the entire hill.  The fun part was turning around and seeing that only 2 guys were left on my wheel.  Another hill that was steeper than what we had been riding I knew I had to let the 2 guys go that I was working with since my heart rate had rocketed and the Watts were not sustainable.  Once I waited and my HR stabilized I was able to continue to push and pull back a little ground on the 2 guys that dropped me.

I did fade each day around the 80 mile mark.  The second day was better as I tried to eat more, but still the last 10 miles of the 100 were painful.

My 5 min best was 380 Watts with a peak at 1015 Watts.

In Summary I did a mix of pulling and sitting in, but definitely did a fair share of the work on the hills.  Enough to feel like I put some good work in.

I am also going to look into the roller piece Rachel mentioned

Jeff

Camp

Well another week (plus a few days) is in the books.  This past weekend was my team camp, which was a blast.  I ended up getting in 85 miles on Friday and 100 miles on Saturday.  I felt good during the rides and was able to ride with the strong guys.  I did hit a new peak watts at 1040 at some point during the weekend.  The plan was to do a 40 mile ride on Sunday, but snow and high wind made that not a good idea.  It has been a little crazy since the weekend so I have not had a chance to really dive into the numbers.

Camp was the incentive I needed to shave the legs for the summer.  Last year was the first time I shaved the legs so my wife still has mixed opinions on it.

One really cool aspect of camp was that we had the opportunity to get professional massages on Friday night.  The Fix studio is a team sponsor so they came down.  It definitely made the legs feel great.

Yesterday and today were the first days I have commuted to and from work.  This is great as I can get my workouts in vs. sitting in the car.  Both days I have not had the best snap in the legs, but enough to keep pushing through the workouts.

Jeff