Wednesday, April 1, 2009

April Training -Bill

Ok, here is the post that I've been waiting for for 5 months. I choose to get my test in today before the 2 sets of BIs. I've know that I was going darn well over the past few weeks, but this test was really good. I hit every hill like Tyson and still focused on the downs quite hard. By the way, the BIs were pretty difficult as well- total race reality. I did mine in the park as it began to rain. For the test, one factor for the speed might also be the wind was not that strong.

20 Min test-park
Average watts 344watts-5% =328watts for new LT
Average HR-170bpm
Cadence-86rpm
weight-170lbs=77.3 kg
Avg. speed-24.2mph
Power to weight(95%) 4.23 watts/kg

This is only the 1st time I have broken into the 4s. Hope to keep things rolling and I finally got some confidence back since my fall.

13 comments:

  1. Great job Bill!!! your #s are amazing!!

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  2. You rock Bill! I have 2 kilos to go to get where you are, it's going to be hard now that the season has begun. You will be smoking fast for sure!

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  3. Sat. I spent a great hour or two on the TT bike with Steve in the park. Legs were tired. The even better portion of my training came from watch this following video of the race yesterday in Walkersville. Notice Jared had made it into the last group of 20. Battley was really swinging hard. When the speeds go up, it almost looks like the vid was sped up. Wish I was in that mix!

    http://bryanvaughan.blogspot.com/

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  4. Sunday Sunday Sunday: Dre, Steve, Twister, Gus, Scott, and I went to the park for some race tactics and some out-n-out hard work. We did the KOM drills and it was a great experience working with new guys to the drill. We tried every tactic available to neutralize each other(3 man teams). It's nice to see how strong everyone is, and it's only the begining of April!!! again, check out the video on the above post.

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  5. Reaccreditation hear me roar. Needless to say, writing things other than job related-off the menu. Ok time to play catch-up. What is the difference between a "breakthrough" and a great workout? The simple answer, the sun, moon, clean chain, wife's temperament, EMOs(wink), and a large supply of Accelerade. That's an example of both. On Tuesday, I did the LT(MT) at 75-77 rpms with great ease. I thought that perhaps it was just tailwind that let me feel go doing it. All segments told about the same story. Great speeds are coming at this cadence. I was in the back of the park and was doing about 22.4-22.8mph on average. The cadences would unfortunately come up on the downs, but cadence came up to only 87 max(in the 11). My knees did ache at about the 6th rep and onward, but not enough for me to curtail the workout. These are getting more comfortable as we go, but am ever-concerned about the knee issues.

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  6. THAT kind of trip home...

    Well I went to the park about 2:00 Wednesday for the three sets of 3 reps of 1 min. The Bridging Intervals are the real meat of this month's training schedule. The power demands for a max of 1 min. are great. The usual situation has a decrease in power per rep and a decrease in time of rep as the workout progresses. This was EXACTLY how my day went. First, I have found a segment of the park in a valley on the back of the park, which has launching speed potential and has landmarks that allow me to know about where I should be in a minute, so I don't keep my focus on my clock.(my focus should be on the road hazards, other people, and which Union troops are pushing forward in a "bounding over-watch" movement onto the road)

    My first set really saw some huge power numbers. I set the CPU on average power so I can see the end of each rep number. I saw 540watts(55secs), 534(55), and 522(51). Sometime in the recovery between sets my CPU computer completely died and reset etc, etc.

    My next two set were completely off my watch(recovery) and where I know I should be. I'm sure the second sets averaged in the 30-40 sec range and were probably 100 watts by the end of each-I was so hammered.

    The third was a bit more collected, but equally eye-crossing. The reps were still about 30-45 secs, but I was getting farther in distance. My form absolutely fell apart by the final rep of the sets.

    Now, as I was riding home after the tempo, I was still quite dizzy and had to step off at one point after going into the grass. I really gave it my all, and paid for it as well. After a 5 min break at the opening of the park, I came home and took a 15 min nap(unheard of in my house). It helped, but I'll remember this training session for certain.

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  7. Hey Boss what is the plan for Sunday?

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  8. In the original Star Trek series there was an episode where spock being distracted by family issues and the stabbing of Captain Kirk could not understand how a small vessel kept evading the Enterprise. Turns out the vessel never planned on returning home so it was running its engines way past maximum. Bill your running your engine way past maximum, if you aint finishing the whole 60 seconds, you aint figuring on getting home!

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  9. Today I hit the library(dungeon) in order to complete the Bookends. The nature of these are so relevant to our racing-crossing to a break, lining up for the final sprint, sprinting for a corner before the sprint.

    I had to do these indoors so the numbers were not as impressive. The initial jumps were always good and hard. At 20 sec., I settled into a high LT for the remaining 2 minutes. Finally, I sprinted out of my LT for 10 seconds. Each time I did the reps, I suffered heavily, but under control. I tried to hold 320 watts at 80-85rpms. This held the speed at 23.8-24.6mph.

    I really worked on visualization during the reps. I saw jumping out of the field, pushing toward the line, and sprinting over the finish. The easiest moments of the workout always came at the 1 minute mark and lasted until the 1:30 mark. I'm not sure why this was happening. Perhaps the PC ran out and it took some time for the anaerobic system to kick in, say at the one min. mark. At any rate, It was a fantastic and relevant workout.

    I can't wait for Ed to share the great news from his race in WV.

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  10. I really have a love/hate relationship with the BIs. I love the 1st set of them and have some impressive numbers to back up my feel. For 1 min-550,533,539watts.

    I've been exploring what kind or starting effort nets me the farthest distance in 1 min. Here are the two options. 1.starting off with a massive effort for 10-14 secs, trying to settle into a rhythm for the rest of the effort. I marked a starting point for these. Option 2: quick jump up to speed(95%), settle in, and power it home with a few watts more at the end. Results over the past two session(all sets) are pretty similar in watts averaged, but the distance is actually greater in that minute with a full on effort at the start(option 1). Now the further into the sets, the distance shrinks anyway, but no doubt that my strength is that high end power. This is certainly not true for all, but it is worth tracking to know what works for you. The jump out of a field initiated by you wanting to go solo for a lap, the slower start might get me farther. However, if I'm following someone out or bridging up, the sooner I get there, the sooner I recover.

    Now my next set of BIs were quite unimpressive. I really struggled to get the same efforts, but sadly fell off something fierce. The watts were lower and the reps started to shorten up by about 10-12 seconds. I have been trying hard to go to the full minute, but anything over 30 is gravy. My watts were between 432-470. The rest of my ride was fine and comfortable at tempo.

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  11. Yea the racing is fun, but just riding for pleasure is nice too. I took full advantage of the day(76 degrees). I needed a midweek recovery day so a 3 hour E ride was appropriate in the days leading up to the Casey Crit. The pace was fully in the E zone w/ power average at 130watts and 14.7 mph.

    Three funny things happened on the ride. First, was the "nature break" somewhere on Summit Crossing. As I'm standing there, I'm hearing a funny ring sound and a cell phone is ringing right beside me under the leaves. It stopped and I picked it up only to have it ring again. I answered it and the person on the other end said, "Bueno" and I tried to talk to them, but they hung up. I left it along the edge of the road so that it might be found by the owner.

    The next thing happened about 10 min later. I passed an older woman trying to start an OLD roto-tiller. I came back and asked if she needed help, "YES!" I pulled on that frakin cord for 5 minutes before I got the choke right and it purred like a dying Pinto.-My back, subsequently is toast-

    The final thing happened up near Macedonia Church. I saw a yard sale and there was a really nice hand carved wine rack. I stopped and looked around, asking for the price of the rack. The man and woman looked at me and my ride and the guy said, "If you can take it on THAT, you can have it!" Sweet, but how do I get it home. I asked him if he had an old bungee cord and he came back with one. I slung it over my shoulder and onto my back and headed home. 15 miles later(that would have been a picture of pictures!) It totally collapsed and flung off my back and almost into the front wheel. Dowels and wood were everywhere. I stacked them all in my pockets and dropped it off at my Brothers house by Pelham's Crossing.

    That ended a great ride. One side-note. I had that stupid song "Looking for love in all the wrong places..." stuck in my head the ENTIRE ride.

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  12. Frakk you, now I have it stuck. Nice piece of dumpster diving!

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  13. I'll post tomorrow as the month changes! Lots to tell!

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