Busy Week

This week will be a pretty busy one for me, lots to do around the house in addition to all the bike practice. Tonight I'm going to head home and hit the road right away after work, basically until sunset so hopefully I'll get in about 1hr45min to 2 hrs. The plan is to do a warm-up and then 55 minutes of Tempo work and then a cool down. I'd like to hit at least 2 hours so I'll be flying home after work to get out by 5:30ish. If I only get in 90 minutes or so then I'll probably ride a bit more on the trainer when I get back. After that I'll be doing some painting and cutting some molding for the house so that my wife is happy when it comes time for her sister's bridal shower at our house on the 29th. Tomorrow will be more of the same as I'll be flying home after work and then doing some SteadyState intervals for what hopefully will be another 2 hour ride. Thursday will be a regular ride at endurance pace and I might do part or most of it on the trainer as I'd like to get my lawn thatched on Thursday so that I can lay down some crabgrass preventer this weekend after Saturday's race. Obviously I can't thatch my lawn in the dark so I'll have to do that after work and then save the ride for the basement. We'll see how I feel though, if it's really nice out, I may just hit the bike outside. Friday will be a short ride as I have the race on Saturday so I'll just do a short ride with a few Power Intervals thrown in to get the legs fired up for Saturday.
Saturday I have the Brown Deer race and from the race flyer description it's a dead flat course nearly 2 miles in length and it appears that there is only one corner but it's about 120 degrees. The rest of the turns appear to be pretty soft turns through the park. Not sure how open it is so not sure if any wind would be a factor, but obviously being a flat course of nearly 2 miles in distance, there will be opportunities for some breaks to get away and stay away. I've never done this course before so not sure how it will play out, all I know is that this year the first two races have been won by breakaways which was pretty unusual last year. Seems everyone is in the mood to attack this year, especially after having watched lots of EuroPro races on Versus already. We all think we can emulate them but there are probably only a handful of guys, if that, that can solo away in the Master's 4/5s. It was pretty funny to see some guys attack at Madison this past weekend only to sit up or get brought back right away as soon as they hit the headwind. Speaking of Madison, Sunday's race will probably be a repeat of this last weekend. I'm sure quite a few people will try their hand in a break before a good one finally sticks. I'm going to make sure that no matter how it plays out that I'm there in the end. I don't want to give away too much though, so that's about it for strategy. After only 2 races I'm 2nd in the WCA standings for 30+ Masters 4/5 and I'd like to keep that placing or even better for the first few races before I decide whether to upgrade or try to win the point series. Right now I'm leaning towards upgrading by mid-season but we'll see. I like the guys I'm racing with now and I don't know that I really need to be in any hurry to get killed by the 1s and 2s in the other category. If I improve my power and climbing ability in the next month or two then I'd definitely lean towards the upgrade as those are my weaknesses right now, and I'd get killed in road races. Anyways, the weather looks good this week, should be a good week of riding, can't wait for the races this weekend. Until next time........