STEVE'S JUNE TRAINING AND RACING

June 30

I am starting to think the damage is more muscular than strutural. After ibuprofen and stretching I was able to ride for an hour this afternoon. Some easy, some hard efforts, but nothing of any duration. By the end of the hour, my back and shoulder were beyond the discomfort stage into something more, so I shut it down. I can feel the fitness slipping and the weight creeping up with this reduced work load and being back in the office. More ibuprofen on tap for Wednesday's ride.

June 28-29

Ribs, shoulder and back all ache and keep me awake at night, but the pain seem to be getting less acute. So what will I do? Go for a ride on Tuesday. Probably nothing too hard, but at least some miles to keep the legs going. Could have been much worse. Poor Jeff Lawson really got torn up at the HAMmerfest. Makes one think!

June 27


Hammered No Fest. Friday evening, promised my youngest daughter we would go for a bike ride together. Riding down a path on a beach cruiser, minor decline, no brakes, daughter blocking my only survival line, CRASH. Can't breath, back and ribs compressed.


No sleep, but can't let Bill down for TTT. Late to the race, oldest daughter needed multiple pit stops. Can someone help get my skin suit on? I can't seem to use my left arm without severe pain and back spasms. Fraking power tap not working again. What warm up let's go. "Bill this is a 27 mile race why are we pushing VO2 max in the first 4 miles?","Sorry Bill, I just don't have it." "Hey Bill, this is a team TT, we are only as fast as the slowest rider, which is me. The trick now is to make me faster." "OFF", "OFF", "Sorry, I suck". "Has anyone seen my dog?" That was the TTT. The ride home and rest of the day was a blur of fatigue and pain. Congratulations to Jordan and Jack for a tremendous ride and helping find my dog. Those two are pure power. Bill, again my apologies for slowing you down, but it was fun having a teammate. Retirement looms!


June 25

Today was tempo day and the final interval although not hard physically did take mental concentration to not fall into the endurance zone. Today is packing day for the return to the 'Burg. Hope to see the BWR crew in the coming days. Great work by all of the WNC racers, wish I was there.

June 24

First, thanks to Jordan and Bill for feedback on my last post. I noticed the wind effect again today so it is no fluke. Today was sprint day and telling myself this was for the prime at the WMC. 3x5x15 all out sprints. I have not checked power numbers yet, but preliminarily I was able to keep power up throughout all sprints. In fact I must have put so much power out at one point that I pulled my rear wheel loose from the dropout. Although I felt good during the sprints, I surely felt them afterwords. Thanks to the BWR riders for the race reports. Although I am not there it still makes me feel part of the team.

June 23

Too far from home to do the WMC I am trying to boost the training this week by working hard on the training schedule. 2x10 tempo and 2x15 LT. The second LT was into the wind and was puzzling. I expected the power numbers to be higher and easier to reach but the opposite was the case. Despite a greater perceived effort the power numbers were lower. Interestingly whenever the wind let up or I was in a shielded area the power numbers were where I would expect them to be. Anyone have an explanantion for this?

June 21

The State TT was run in it's usual location, the Stony Creek wind tunnel. I will never figure out how you can have a quartering headwind in both directions, but that is how it was. My power tap acted up just prior to the start so I had to ride the TT old school with no speed, cadence or power information, only feel. I tried using the Levi Leiphiemer approach and break the race into thirds. Go hard, settle in, go hard. I may have settled in a little too easy but without telemetry it was hard to tell. At the end Jeff Lawson who won said I was 45-50 seconds behind him at approx 56:20 and Tim Starky was about 2:00 behind him. Tim also said he did an extra lap at the turn around trying to get some water, because his bottle fell out near the start of the race so that appeared right to him. I could only rely on that because I had no timing myself. I left before the results came out thinking I had second place. Jordan called and said I was third at 58:00 and Starky was second. How does that happen you ask. NO FRAKIN CHIP TIMING IN A STATE CHAMPIONSHIP! It is getting very tiring how the times keep getting screwed up. Rant over, it was a good exercise since I learned my perceived exertion was pretty close to actual work. Be assured that I will have some form of timing ready to go for the next TT. Bill may have wanted a ten, but I find that low gear mashing tires the muscles pre-maturely and results in gradual loss of speed. I prefer to vary gears and cadence by condition. It will be interesting how our two styles mesh in the two man TT next week. Should be fun. Hey Jinks, no flat!

June 17

2x10 tempo 2x3 VO2 Feeling the fatigue but still able to get the work done. Easy rides from here to TT day. Wish I was closer to home, the crit on Saturday looks like it would be fun. Good luck boys see you Sunday.

June 16

Maybe I am working too hard, but instead of E, I did 1x10 LT and 1X15 LT, the first interval was definitely the hardest to maintain, interval 2 I felt good. Because it has been cloudy and cool here in the OBX fewer people are on the beach and more idiots and morons are on the road. A woman with her ipod plugged in and playing with her cell phone was walking and would not look up to my various shouts and warnings as I approached her at 27 mph. I barely managed to squeeze into the traffic lane and around her without being hit by the cars traveling in my direction. As I blew past her she screamed at me A$$hole. The shoulder is six feet wide with a grassy area next to it. An easy place to move to the side. But she wanted to be in the middle and I am the A$$hole? I sorely wanted to let her have a piece of my mind but let it go in the name of training. Hope everyone else stays safe.

June 15

An hour of easy spin for active recovery. Although I feel some fatigue the legs feel like they are coming around into some form of fitness.

June 14

RACE DAY FOR STEVE
Drove up from the OBX to the PLT. The old guys were either dissed or given a favor with an early start time. Unfortunately the wind did not wait for long enough to pick up and the last leg of the course was a swirling headwind that took its toll. That and being so screwed up that I forgot to charge up with a Gu meant that last leg was a suffer fest. All in all not the best ride for me but in context of others not bad. Third in the 50+ and according to fast man Jordan 5th in all age categories. (Jordan was 3rd with a frakin' fast time in the conditions. I guess his FTL was Cylon enhanced.) Thanks to Jinks and Ed for hooking me up with a replacement wheel after mine blew prior to the TT, could not have competed without your great support.


June 7

Managed to hook up with some BWR boys for a fast paced ride. Some good attack, counter attack practice with a little bit of TT effort thrown in. Too bad I did not have my race wheels on like Bill, but I guess it was even since his filled with water while fording the river. Nice to know this old Cat 4 can hang with the young Cat 3's in a break. Time to power up the FTL and jump on the next three weekends of TT racing.


June 3

Bill- "How you feel?" Steve- "Like doo." Bill- "I'll chase you first." Steve- "Not much to chase." Bill- "Wussy." Steve- "Go." A hard but fun workout 5x3 max efforts. It was very interesting noting where time and distances were made up and lost and just where that sweetspot of power, cadence and speed come together. Chasing Bill down and passing in the sweetspot, Bill coming back around as it is lost, finding it again and moving back past. Holding the work level for the FULL 3 MINUTES! The revised TT position is feeling faster with every ride!

June 2

Remember the movie Bull Durham? In the movie the team is burned out on a road trip. Bull decides they needed a rain out to recover, but there was no rain predicted. Being creative Bull breaks into the ball park and turns all of the sprinklers on full and "rains out" the game. I didn't need to turn on the sprinklers, but I was sure glad to use the big storm that rolled through on Tuesday to my advantage. Bill and I joined up in the park for the 4x9 LT intervals. First interval slightly low but no worries, second interval not as high as I hoped, but in the acceptable range, third interval the same as the first despite pouring every ounce of effort I could get into it. After Bill rolled up looking like someone just ran over his dog and him, I said look at the storm coming, let's get the frak out of here. Rain outs can be a beautiful thing!

BRYAN PARK GRAND PRIX

So it really was May 31, but today is June. After spending the morning worrying if I could stay with the pack and avoid crashing, the answer came back with a resounding YES. Except for two moments in the race it really was rather unexciting. I stayed in the top five for most of the race except for the time I moved back to "encourage" Jeff. After which we had the pleasure of drifting Jordan off into a break that should have gone clear but for the dumb a$$ racing of teams not to be mentioned. From there it was a matter of sticking to the plan. Exciting moment 1 was watching a TNP have his front wheel taken out directly in front of me. I broke left and Jordan, who spent most of the day either right in front of me or just behind me, broke right. Exciting moment 2, with three and a half to go, according to plan, I countered an attack by the eventual winner to try and set up Jordan for a counter, counter attack. It was perhaps my only tactical error of the day. I attacked just a little early and burned too much fuel by jumping too hard to sustain the gap long enough to really help Jordan. As the pack caught back up I went to re -accelerate back into the pack, but my calves decided to cramp right at that moment. It was just enough of a lag that I lost contact with the pack. I tempoed in the rest of the way, but even then managed to pass several stragglers. It was the most fun having Jordan and Jeff in the group, seeing the race and working as a team. To all the BWR and Gades racers great frakin job!