Power to the People or at least ME!

A friend of my wanted to know my power output, so he let me borrow his Power Tap.

To do this I figured I wanted to get a good hard work out. Days are longer so I took a good long warm up and rode out to my favorite hill ride. I did 3x z4 8' up and over hill repeats (this hill climb takes me about 4.5 to 5 minutes to get to the top then a false flat and then down on the "ridge" so it's a climb and a true interval effort. I finished up going home via "Old Ancaster Road" a nice winding hilly road.

Results my climb was at 425 for the 4.5 minutes except the little dip on the climb, so I should go easier at the beginning ride harder at the "dip" and then back at it, and I would climb the hill faster. Then on the last 3.5 of the interval I dropped to 300. My HR stayed at a constant upper end of z4 moving +- 2 beats. On Old Ancaster at the really good climb part I had 650 for 2 minutes, HR in z5 I just wanted to see how much power output I had on that route.

What do I think of power? at about $1200 its expensive training tool. Would I like to train with power? Yes, if the price comes down, I can get my hands on a wired used unit, or my business just takes off (see NEW website below) and I have disposable income. All that said and done, HR training using the tried and true build method with recovery periods has put me at the top of my game.

I like being Chunky

Last year in Cyclo-Club Josh introduced Chunk Riding (I think it was alos mentioned on a CD in SPEED when, but I don't recall that one as well), I put the idea on the back burner as I had some pretty short times to train. This summer, I'm less busy, and when the weather's warm (not too often so far) I want to spend a little longer on the bike.

So Tuesday night I knew I wanted to do something w/ hills and my favorite hill interval takes 30 minutes drive to get to (which cuts into riding time). So I picked a ride with a lot of rollers, now I should mention I tried a shorter version the Tuesday before but I was way too tired from work and I was not dressed warm enough, so this week I made sure I had my leg mojo on (Sports Blam) so I would not wimp out. I took a nice long warm-up to get to the really good rollers, and did 3x 10' z4 rollers (10'); then rode through a couple of the nice little towns in Southern Ontario, and got headed in the direction of home, and did one big massive flatish road 20' z4 interval, and then cooled down for 25' on the way home. So I had an 80 km ride that was very enjoyable and was a fantastic workout.

NOW I do wish I could sound like a Cyclo-CLUB fanatic and tell you all that I did COOL in 5' when I got home, but "My Bad." I did do my SPEED AB work out and BREATH on Wednesday a.m.

Saturday's group ride I rode a few Massive effort chunks and made everyone wounder what the heck I was on.

SO, I'm training a little less structured this summer than the past two but I'm defiantly stronger, never mind add in the new (to me) bike and not many people can keep up with me... Oh I love going FAST!!!!

My Road Bike

With this year not working too well as far as getting work, I bartered for a very nice 3 year-old bike. I like it a lot. I wanted to race some more but that's money spent on entry fees and on travel, the closer races I could do are just a little boring, a 17 lap "road-Crit" I did crits when I was twenty, I won Crits then, I want longer loops, some kind of strategy. Not offered in Southern Ontario w/o travel and over nighters. May be next year.

The bike... a Specialzed Tarmac S-works. It's sweet w/ 404 Zipps. I plan on a pair of Nuvations when work picks up once again. It helps me beat the snot out of my friends. (along with a few hill intervals, CORE work, and staying on FUEL!)

Not so Good things

Today we rode HARD. This was one of those rides which is almost harder than a race. On our last 10 kms of 120 kms Greg touched my wheel... rode for he thinks about 2 m trying to get straight then went down hard, and broke his clavicle, and trashed his knees (they look bad). This took place doing between 45-50 kms/hr so it was that kind of hard. One nice thing about breaking my clavicle in a Cross race is the grass stains washed out of my jersey...

The next bad thing is the guy behind him went down too, and thought all he got was a red mark on his leg from the wheel, tonight his wrist is swollen. They were both in a pile when we turned around. Its one thing to see the pro's go down but when its in real life and your buddies its not good.

Today could have been one of those days you talk about for a week feeling good about yourself, now its "The Ride" where Greg has been installed into the "I broke my clavicle while riding club".

May 17th Race

I've been busy with work and even a bit of training. Next week is the Niagara classic, with the dreaded Effingham hill. My race is 6 laps for a total of some 75 kms. I've been training like a mad man, I'll save the total details but z4 Hill repeats have been one biggie. I've included what I think is from Map my Ride elevation from the race PDF, and from my Polar "the Hill" itself. Last Saturday I was able to pull away from everyone... several guys were out preriding the course. I will have a race report next week. I might even get photos of my bike in there too.