Jordan's Traing and Racing

July 19-24

Out of town all week, with the youth from church. Managed to get in 3 45-minute workouts on the stationary bike in the fitness center. A forced rest week is probably just what I need, I haven't had many days off the bike this season - but it's hard for my mind to accept that I am not going to lose 9 months of training and racing fitness in one week. It's good to get off long enough to want to get back outside and ride. Keeps away the burn-out for the remainder of the season. And hopefully I will have a really strong TT on Sunday to confirm the value adequate rest.

July 18

It's disappointing to see the BAR slip through my fingers in a single weekend of races. Today's time trial widened the distance even more. My strength is definitely not the shorter course TT, I need more VO2 training on the TT bike, I think. 35-40K, I'm good to go, I've got the endurance and the pacing skills, but I go into the red at just 10-20 watts above threshold - I need to try to widen that to 40-50 watts if I'm going to be able to master the 20-25K efforts.

July 6-12

No races this week saw me focused on a bit of recovery during the first 3 days and then an increase in intensity and duration for the last 4 days. Thursday was a top ten 60-min normalized wattage of 335 watts - I had just done a 15-minute threshold effort, then when I got to the usual meeting place discovered I was late for the group ride and found myself chasing all-out for another 13 minutes @ 350 watts to get within shouting distance. I recovered a bit as my partners waited for me, sat out just one pull in the rotation (there are usually 3 of us) and then proceeded to ride like I normally do - until the weakest guy begs me to slow down. I saw that normalized power was looking great so I kept the pace high during my pulls.

Friday I went out and did a couple of hours of sweet spot tempo, at about 91% of FTP (88% for the first hour, 94% for the second). Saturday saw an increase in duration to 3 hours and a decrease in intensity to about 80%, although I fit in a solid hour of tempo in there and the rest was endurance. Sunday was a relatively easy-going ride of 2 hours at about 75% with one 4-minute VO2 effort at 400 watts on the final long hill and one 45-second hill attack at around 600 watts on the final short steep hill.

ID3 Race Report: A decent weekend of racing in the ID3 Master's 30+ Omnium. While there were only 10 of us racing the whole omnium, with guys like the King Brothers, Mike Hosang, Pat Raines (former Time Pro, now w/ Mtn. Khakhis), Frank Deal, and Bill Short (Vision Screen Printing) racing, it was going to be a hard 3 days for this lil' Cat 4, but I was going to give it my best.

July 3-5

ID3 Race Report: A decent weekend of racing in the ID3 Master's 30+ Omnium. While there were only 10 of us racing the whole omnium, with guys like the King Brothers, Mike Hosang, Pat Raines (former Time Pro, now w/ Mtn. Khakhis), Frank Deal, and Bill Short (Vision Screen Printing) racing, it was going to be a hard 3 days for this lil' Cat 4, but I was going to give it my best.

I turned myself inside out on Mill Mountain, knowing that I might be able to get the most points there. My personal goal - to break 11 minutes. Last year was 11:26. To summarize, I put out 411 watts average power for the entire climb - 40 watts more than last year. To be able to put out 11% more watts - I'm still in shock. That 40 watts shaved 30 seconds off my time, and I just skirted in under my goal with a 10:56. 4 points in the omnium.

Saturday was a beautiful day, and I was excited to be racing a course that I hadn't raced in 10 years, back when they had the Saturn Cup/Tour de Festival, and this was the state senior championship crit course. The race saw Dan King and Pat Raines gun it from the start (which I knew they were going to do), and Mark King executed the perfect little block that slowed me just enough to give them a gap. I tried to bridge to them at first, but to no avail, and nobody else seemed terribly interested either, so they lapped the field. The pace was swift, and the small field made it feel more like a chase group than a peloton. Several riders were dropped, but I hung on strong. Then Pat Raines and Hosang went - so it was put up or shut up time. Dan King, who was a lap up but just saw first place go off the front, Mark King, and myself were the only 3 who were either willing or able to put in some hard work. The break stuck, and I ended up 6th in a war of attrition. 2 points.

Sunday was light, then medium rain, which when combined with the road grit made us all look like we just finished the Tour of Flanders. With 2 long straightaways and quick double 90-degree turns at either end, plus a chicane, the corners were slower, but we were still accelerating to 30+ mph on the straights each lap. Hurtsville for me, I would get gapped just a touch during the accelerations, but easily make it back on as they slowed for the turn. The flat front tire and the going down fortunately didn't cost me anything in terms of position, it did disrupt my mojo and made it hard to get back into stride. 2 points.

At the end of it all, my 8 points in the omnium was suitable for 5th overall, which basically meant I got my race entry fee back. However, the real benefit was having the fitness to be able to hang with racers that, just last year, were dropping me within 10 laps. It's all about progress - and I think the best is still yet to come.