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......