New Hoops

Shutting It Down

Rode for an hour to warm up on the rollers and then moved to the trainer to do Tempo workouts.....couldn't get my heart rate above 155, I tried for 25-30 minutes, no luck. I'm smart enough to know that it means to shut it down, so that was it for tonight. Maybe time to give the body a rest, I'll see how it responds tomorrow morning but maybe a couple days of recovery rides are in order. That's all, until next time....

Rollin on Carbon Hoopdees This Year

Planned to post pics tonight of new wheels, but Blogger is broken, maybe tomorrow tonight it will be working.......

Yippy, More Snow!

The roads that were good enough to ride on this weekend are getting trashed again with more snow, let's hope the plow crews work double time to get that shite cleared off so I can ride outside again this weekend. Don't they know that I've got bike practice to do this weekend? The past few weeks of training have been going quite well, too much time indoors during the week because I really have no choice, but this past weekend was pretty decent as I did 5 hours outside on Saturday and 3.5 hours outside Sunday with Ben and Dave. 8.5 hours for the weekend is the high for me so far this year and, well, I guess it should be since we are getting closer to race season. I did a recap of Saturday's ride in another post, but I'll reiterate that it was a good ride, I felt really good up the hills and had no problem pushing on the flats. Sunday I felt good on the flats and felt good on the hills in the beginning but felt like shat on the hills in the last hour. I got dropped by the dynamic duo of Ben and Dave on one little power climb, and then followed that up with a flat tire about 10 minutes later. Maybe the flat tire was some sort of saving grace to allow my lactic acid filled legs to take a little break. I did have the distinction of having the hardest ride the day before so I knew I was in for a rough day as I wasn't fully recovered, but either way, Dave and Ben could kick my butt on one of my good days. I've been saying it all off-season, WE WILL HAVE A KICK ASS TEAM THIS YEAR! Dave and Ben will be super strong, Pete, Scott, Kevin, Gene, Paul, Chris and Chris, and myself will be a pretty formidable lineup. I know the guys I listed above will be training hard this off-season and I'm training as hard as I can, up to 15-18 hours per week now, so we may not win all the time or even half the time, but I think our team is worthy of a few wins this year for sure. Enough of the Wheaton soapbox, I've tooted that horn enough this year, but it is what it is, we bad (that means good). As for myself, I'm still working on one of my weaknesses from last year, hill climbing, and may not be one of the top 10 climbers this year in the 30+ 1/2/3 group but I will be improved over what I was last year for what it's worth. I might have to resign myself to the fact that I'm not 155 any more and maybe sprinting is my forte this year but I'm certainly going to try to improve my climbing the best I can, as the saying goes, "race your strengths, train your weaknesses" and that's what I'm going to do. Soooo, the plan for this week right now is calling for about 16.50 to 17.00 hours depending on what the weekend weather brings. If I can get outside both days then it will be 17 hours, and it will be quality work also, I'm not just riding to ride. If the weather is bad and I'm relegated to trainer time then it will be more like 15-16 hours for the week. The plan right now is for 2 to 2.5 hours nightly on the trainer during the week working on Tempo intervals and then this weekend will bring a ride out to Delafield on Saturday and then as of right now I'm planning on a Lake Geneva trip to do 4.5-5 hours around the lake and the surrounding hills. Repeats, repeats, repeats are on the agenda. Sunday's forecast is calling for 39 and 30% chance of rain, that means there's a 70% chance of no rain, whoohoo. Well, that's it for now, I'll have a surprise post tonight with some extra special pictures. Until next time......

Couldn't Resist A Little More

Today was one of those days where I didn't even want to get on the bike, it was colder than I wanted it to be for a long ride and it's always a chore to get all the layers on and try to balance being warm and on the other hand, being too warm and sweating too much. Well today was no problem with the sweating as it was about 27-28 degrees for my ride, although the workout that I went through today was definitely cause for sweat. After begrudgingly putting on the layers I headed out the door with the intention of doing 3.5 to 4 hours and doing tempo work and hill repeats. I warmed up fairly quickly and got going on the Tempo stuff for a bit until I got out to the loop where I was going to do the hill repeats. I did my repeats for a while and then figured I'd start another loop out towards Waukesha, something that would bring me back towards Muskego eventually. So I did that, rode through Muskego to Big Bend and back around the south side of Muskego and then back to New Berlin. So, after not wanting to get all dressed up and even take on the cold weather I ended up doing a 5 hour ride, and I paid for it at the end as I was wiped out from the Tempo work and the hill repeats and my toes were frozen solid by the end. I've attached my chart below of today's ride, you can see my HR is in the ozone layer for the first 4 hours of the ride as I did my Tempo work and hill repeats, and then my last hour is basically a nice flat pace and a cooldown, literally, as I was heading home right at sunset and the temps were dropping. I had a nice big dinner of spaghetti, some bread and recovery drink. I'm getting ready to prop the legs up a bit now and then I'll hit the bed in about an hour. Tomorrow I'll be going out to tiny Trevor to ride with the prez for about 3 hours. Should be a good ride, it'll be at least 6-7 degrees warmer than today so I have that going for me. Well, like I said, today was one of those days where you jump on the bike and are having such a good time that you don't want to stop. Hopefully I'll have many more of those this year as Team Wheaton and I are kicking butt on the rest of Wisco riders. Time for bed, until next time.........




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Sloppy and Sore

Well, it's snowing pretty good out right now and that's just adding to the sloppy mess that we got yesterday with the rain and sleet mix which then froze overnight. Yay for winter, um, just kidding, I hate it. Eventually it has to stop though right, and that means that I'll get back on the road hopefully sooner than later, I'm not minding the trainer at all these days but I sure would like some sunshine. Race season doesn't seem far away and I'm starting to believe that even in spite of the lack of road riding the last couple of weekends, that I will be ready to rock come April 5th. This weekend was a good weekend of training, and went as follows: Friday was weights after work and then I went home, ate dinner and jumped on the rollers and trainer for 2.5 hours, Saturday was 1hr 45 minutes of snowshoeing and then 3 on the trainer. I would have loved to have been on the road Saturday as it was sunny and 26 degrees but there was so much slop on the roads that I couldn't have even made it out of my subdivision. Sunday was the top ride with a nice workout of 4 hours on the trainer and I did Tempo work, Muscle Tension and Fast Pedals. I'm completely beat today but thankfully after 3 tough days of riding it's a rest day on the bike tonight. I will be doing weights tonight but I think I'll be taking it a little easier depending on how sore I am still at the end of the day. Today is all about recovery, making sure I drink a lot of water, replenishing the glycogen stores, and tonight I'll probably get to bed early too, I didn't get alot of sleep this weekend and I'm feeling it now. Looking at the weather forecast, it doesn't look like it will be a good weekend but it's hard to tell now. Forecast is for 30 degrees Saturday and Sunday and 40% chance of, you guessed it, more snow! whoohoo....bah. Well, that's it for now, until next time.

Same ole', Same ole'

Well, more snow and more trainer rides have been, and will be, on the schedule. We're supposed to get 1-3 inches today, not that bad, but what does it matter when we already have like 18-20 inches on the ground, none of it is melting any time soon. This week has been a pretty normal week, did weights on Monday and Wednesday, and trainer rides on Tuesday, Wednesday, this morning, and will ride again tonight, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday before my rest day on Monday. I've been using my Garmin Edge 305 for the last two weeks and I have to say that it has everything I need consolidated in to one device (well, except for a power meter). It's great to be able to download my entire workout in to the training software and check out my HR, cadence, speed, elevation, and it breaks everything down by HR zone and of course there are many more functions with the GPS that I won't get in to here. I used to have to take my HR monitor and my cyclocomputer and write down the totals for each workout and then I would put them manually in to Excel, now I just hook up a USB cable to the PC and it's all there in an instant. Way more convenient. So anyways, this week has been alot of Tempo work, some Muscle Tension stuff and tonight will be Fast Pedals and One-Legged Pedaling to work on biomechanics. This weekend I'll be doing lots of snowshoeing and I doubt that I'll be able to get on the road because of the snow, but we'll see, otherwise it's on the trainer for about 3-3.5 hours each on Saturday and Sunday. Racing starts 8 weeks from this week, that means a lot of intense training coming up in the next 7 weeks and then the 8th week will be somewhat of a taper week as my 7th week will be up to 24-26 hours on the bike and then I'll rest for a week and race on April 5th. Hopefully the weather is a little better than it was last year for the first race.....well, that's it for now, until next time..........

Fast and Faster

Yesterday was 3 hours on the rollers and trainer, just working on mechanics with Fast Pedals and then some muscular stuff with Muscle Tension intervals. I worked up a good sweat, got my HR up there and felt pretty good at the end of the day about my workout. The only problem now is after almost 13 hours this week with 3 more to go today, my arse is getting really sore, hopefully no saddle sores are going to crop up after today's ride, it seems imminent, not that you wanted to know but that's a part of getting back in to the longer durations again. Anyways, while working on my FastPedals which are normally in the 120-130rpm range I tried to really spin it out to see what I could get and got my RPMs almost as high as my HR. My goal is to be able to hit 200rpms at some point just for the fun of it, I got really close, maybe next time. Like I said, today is another 3 hours on the rollers/trainer and for the most part it will just be cleaning out my legs from my long ride Friday and my tough workout yesterday with some Tempo work for about 30-40 minutes and the rest at Endurance Pace. Here's a graph of my ride yesterday with the Fast Pedals starting near the end........

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Vacation Day

I had a vacation day from work today, so instead of sitting in a cubical all day I went out and enjoyed a nice day outside. What did I do on my vacation day, well, not much sitting around as I went out and did a 4 hour ride on the SS mtb, most of it at or near Tempo pace. The temps were not bad at all, 33 degrees, and that's warm compared to what we are going to get this weekend. I hadn't planned on going that long today, but what the heck, it was a fairly nice day and I had the time. My legs are sore now of course, but I had a great dinner of filet mignon and a big baked potato and relaxed the rest of the night watching movies with the family. I'm sure I'll be plenty recovered to do what I want to do tomorrow, which is snowshoe in the morning for about 90 minutes and then in the afternoon or evening I'll be hitting the rollers/trainer as we have to go out to Lake Geneva tomorrow to get our taxes done at 12:30 and then I'm going to visit my parents in Burlington. That'll pretty much take up the day so the indoors riding will be later in the day. I'm planning on 3 hours inside as I already will have done some snowshoeing so nothing as long as today is in order, I'll keep it shorter for sure. I think it's supposed to snow a bit as well and be windy so probably not a good day to be on the bike outside anyways. Sunday is supposed to be bitter cold so probably no snowshoeing but I will hit up the rollers/trainer again for another 3 hours, maybe 4 if I'm feeling rested up. Other than that, not much going on, I'm continuing to ramp up the hours every week and we are closing in on racing season. It seems not long ago that I created my Countdown spreadsheet which started at 180 days until race day, now I'm down to something like 55 days and time sure seems to be flying. I need more time for sure to get back up to speed so I welcome the time I have left before racing starts. Well, off to bed, until next time......

Ummmm, Riiight

In regards to my previous post.....This might actually stop me...they say any where from 9-20 inches depending on where you look. I'm thinking 9 is a good number, my fingers are crossed.....

A Little Sore But There's No Stoppin' Me

Sooo, a little sore? What does that mean, well the crash yesterday hurt more than I thought as I was experiencing pain in my right knee when I woke up Sunday morning. Overnight my knee had swollen up from the little wipeout I had on the slick roads Saturday afternoon and it was quite stiff and sore. I decided to hold off on cycling right away in the morning and let the knee get warmed up a bit and see if I could get the swelling down. I did some work around the house, finishing up some trim around a new bathroom door and staining some window trim and then decided to sit for a bit and ice my knee. After the knee was iced I thought it might be a good idea to maybe jump on the trainer for an hour to test it out and get the blood flowing through it to help recovery. So at about 11:00 I jumped on and it was quite sore at first but after about 15 minutes I was able to pedal with minimal amounts of pain and I finished the hour feeling pretty good about the knee. I took some more downtime and finished working on my projects and then had a great dinner of chicken soft tacos, refried beans, spanish rice, and taco dip. Most of the ingredients were fat free or low fat so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Anyways, after that I figured the knee was up to doing my regularly scheduled ride so I jumped on the rollers and figured I'd hammer out some Tempo workouts during the Super Bowl. 3 hours later I had done about 75 minutes of Tempo work and the rest was just endurance pace and I was sweating buckets. I think I felt really good because those beans kept giving me a turbo boost...um, yeah, anyways.....So 4 hours on the rollers/trainer yesterday and 2.5 hours on the SS Saturday along with 45 minutes of snowshoeing with the wife made for a good weekend. My knee is still a little sore this morning, it actually feels better on the bike than off of it, I'm sure it will be completely recovered in a day or two. Tonight will be weight work and an hour easy on the trainer just to help the legs recover and keep the knee loose. This week I'll be ramping up the bike time even more and will be doing a schedule of 15.50 hours for the week, maybe more if I can get my ass up in the morning for an hour spin before work to clean out the legs from the night before. So far the days look like this - tonight (1 hour RR) - Tuesday (2 hours, w/45 min Tempo) - Wednesday (1.75 hours) - Thursday (1.75 hours, w/45 min Tempo) - Friday (1 hour RR) - Saturday (4 hours, w/75 min Tempo) - Sunday (4 hours). If I have time I'll be doing an extra hour in the mornings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. So it could be up to 18.50 hours this week, but we'll see. Well, that's it for now, until next time......

Productive Day

Not a bad day I guess as I got in 45 minutes of snowshoeing with Melissa this morning as we were in a little bit of a time crunch so we couldn't go quite as long as I had hoped. It was still a good 45 minute workout and my average HR was 142 due to quite a few hills on the trails that we took that are only about a mile from our house. After the snowshoeing we grabbed some grub and I came home and rested up for a few minutes and then changed into all my winter gear so that I could hit the roads and trails with my SS mountain bike. I layered up quite a bit as it was snowing when I decided to head out and it wasn't really all that warm at 26 degrees, but definitely better then we've had of late. I rode down Sunnyslope to the New Berlin Rec trail and then took that to Waukesha where I spent some time going through the city and then I came out the west end near the Fox River. I took the Fox River Parkway trails and was cruising along when I hit a few snake turns that were slick with a little bit of snowcover and I took my first spill of the year. It was a slow spill at only about 15mph but the snow made it seem like a high speed crash as I slid for about 25 feet before I finally came to a stop. I checked over myself and my bike and after determining that I had nothing more than a minor knee scrape and a sore hand I was off and riding towards Big Bend. I went through Big Bend and then back to New Berlin for a total of 2.5 hours of riding. I was going to do 3.5 today but I figured that I did 45 minutes of fairly strenuous snowshoeing and was a little sore from my wipe out so I decided to just relax tonight and watch a movie with the family. My ride was pretty tough anyways as I pushed it for almost the entire 2.5 hours and at the end my average heart rate was 168 with a max of 190bpm. I spent an hour and 15 minutes split almost equally with my HR between 80-89% of max and 90-100% of max so it was almost like a TT the whole way. I can definitely feel it now as I had to push the one gear up the hills and I spun it out on the flats and descents as well so I used every muscle to the max. My legs are pretty darn sore now but I'm going to do it again tomorrow and then will take Monday to do an easy recovery ride to clean out the legs a bit. Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly cloudy I guess but no snow and about 4 degrees warmer so that's a bonus. I plan on doing about the same routine, but this time I'll go out snowshoeing myself in the morning for about 1.5 hours and then hit the bike for another 2.5 hours, but this time I'll avoid the trails so that I don't have another wipeout. I can't afford to break a collarbone or something slipping out on the snow again, better to play it safe this early in the year. Well, off to bed to get some much needed rest, until next time.......

Still Truckin' Along

So I haven't had much to say lately because I haven't been doing much. Lifting, riding occassionally, and just waiting for nicer weather. After about 3 or 4 weeks now of not riding outside, I've got a major case of cabin fever and this weekend I'm going to give it a go on the SS regardless of all the snow on the road, with an outside ride most likely coming on Sunday. I got a new toy that I'm going to play with as well this weekend and I'll give a review after the weekend of riding is over. I'll also be snowshoeing a bit tomorrow, we sure as hell have enough snow for it. I'm gradually losing weight, so that is coming along well, I'll be at racing weight with no problem by the first race in April. The WCA schedule also came out today and along with Superweek and the Iowa Memorial Day races; my schedule looks pretty full with about 35 races for the year. Possibly the Masters Nationals in Kentucky as well, but that would be a bit of a stretch. Been riding on the trainer the last few days and will hit it up again tonight for about 90 minutes of easy riding to loosen up for the thrashing I'm going to give myself this weekend. My schedule calls for kicking up the intensity in the next few weeks so the hurting is going to be happening on a more regular basis as I progress towards April. Well, that's it for now, hope you all enjoy your weekend, hit those skis or the mtb, and maybe a beer or two....enjoy, until next time..........