Think "specificity" when a weather advisory cancels your workout.

So, I was planning on doing the River Ride on Saturday, and was really looking forward to being aggressive and mixing it up, but the weather did not cooperate. 20-30 mph wind with gusts over 40. Now, I like riding in the wind as much as the next bruiser, but I do not go out training when there is a weather advisory in effect.

Period.

End of discussion.

Whaaaah! Booooohoohoo!!!

Now what?

Well, after another near perfect week of training, adding sets and weight in the gym, getting out on the road for some solid threshold work and completing a power profile and MAP test, I decided some race specific work on the rollers would be the ticket. I am considered an endurance racer at the track so I want to work on some race specific endurance. And what do we do in a mass start track endurance race? We go 28-32 mph for 10-30 minutes and sprint at 40 mph. There are many variations on this theme but that is the base we need to have.

So I get on the rollers and crank it up to 30 mph with my watts just below threshold and hold it for ten minutes accelerating to 40 mph at the end. With the low resistance of the rollers it feels like motorpacing or drafting in the pack and even though the sprint wattage numbers are not nearly as big as a live sprint, the effort to bear down and squeeze out that 140 rpm at the end is the same. And to do it repeatedly in my garage with that kind of focus is priceless!

I also cranked out 5 sets of alternative dumbbell exercises to mix it up, including one set of dead lifts. And oooooh, my hammies are barking! Alright, enough trade secrets for one night. Ride fast and swerve!

recovery week

So I am gonna let you in on a little secret. It is in all of the literature but is the most overlooked (or flat out ignored) aspect of training to race at a high level. It is the recovery week. I can't figure why it's so hard to back off and let the body heal itself to come back stronger after a period of hard training. I can't tell you how many times I've heard some jackass proclaim on a group ride that they are just sitting on because they are in a recovery week or on a recovery ride. WRONG! Recovery rides are noodling along for 45-90 minutes on the small ring at 12 MPH. Hello? Did you catch my drift? Cruising along at 18 MPH is NOT a 12 MPH recovery pace.

Anyway, some programs do three weeks hard and one week easy, or two weeks hard and one week easy, or my favorite (especially in the off season), six weeks build with one week easy. What is the use of doing everything right on schedule for six weeks including all of the lifestyle sacrifices we make only to skip the one thing that will make you the fastest...RECOVERY??? Maybe we need to drop the term recovery and use supercompnsation in it's place. "I can't make the group hammerfest tonight because I am supercompensating." It sounds like you are really doing something special. And you are. You do a hard block of training and then you rest. While you are resting your body is coming back stronger than when you started the last block. It's the most basic law of progressive overload. Why interfere? You think your DNA is the exception to the rule? I think not.

So following are my guidelines for my own supercompensation periods...

1. Start by taking a day completely off. No work, no training, period.
2. Continue strength training (you are cross training right?), but only do two days on the current weight and repetition schedule, and only one set of each exercise. This is to keep those hard earned neural pathways turned on.
3. Pay strict adherence to a well balanced diet with a small but consistent calorie deficit. This is a weight maintenance week!
4. 7-10 hours of sleep every night. This is true in all training periods, year round, but is easy to ignore. So I'm reminding you again.
5. Do at least three days of easy spinning for 45-90 minutes at 12 MPH with some granny gear cadence drills of 6x1 minute at 120-140 RPM thrown in to keep those hard earned neural pathways turned on.
6. End the week with a power profile test and record your body measurements.
7. Learn a new skill or do some homework that will help you accomplish your goals for next year. I am learning how to use a computrainer to do MAP testing and torture my friends and clients.

Okay, off to bed I go. Toodle pip and cheerio. Ride fast and swerve!

specificity...so, what do YOU want to do?

This season was an experiment to see what would happen if I tried to be two completely different types of racer in one year. The first half was an ultra-endurance road racing season which culminated in a 272 miles effort at the Davis 24 Hour Challenge on May 2-3. I did some HUGE solo rides and some randonnées in the six months preparing for that. The biggest question, with an eye to the Furnace Creek 508, was could I ride through the night without going mental. The answer is yes, so there is some unfinished business there, with the possibility of the 508 in 2014. The second half of the season was dedicated to racing on the track with the focus being on becoming an all around omnium racer. I had some respectable rides in both disciplines, but not one ride was totally satisfying. I never really found my legs on the ultra rides and then I never got out from under the fatigue of the long stuff when it came time to go fast at the track. But it was a calculated risk and I never embarrassed myself, so I must rate the season a success. Especially considering the great support I received and the friendships that developed over the course of a looooong year. Training began on October 20, ended on September 18, and included 21 race days.

Somewhere over the course of the summer I decided that I would really like to give track racing a try. It was probably in the Hellyer tent at Alpenrose that I knew for sure that the next few seasons would have a single focus. After nine years of dabbling in many different kinds of racing I am dedicating all available resources to pedalling fast and turning left.

So what, specifically, does that mean as it relates to training? Well, for starters, we need to define the characteristics of the races we want to do. I like the idea of becoming a well rounded track racer that can do well in the omnium format. The typical races at an omnium are the time trials, the mass starts, and the sprint events.

The time trials consist of the flying 200m, the flying lap, the 500m 750m or kilo from a standing start, and the 2K 3K or 4K Pursuit also from a standing start. All of these require us to make a big acceleration and then hold on for dear life. Some winning riders will get up to speed then hold a consistent pace for the remainder of the race while others will consistently accelerate all the way to the finish.

The mass starts are the miss and out, the scratch race, and the points race. In the miss and out we sprint every one or two laps until we are one of the last three standing and then we sprint again for the podium spots. The scratch race is like a criterium, they specify the number of laps and the first one across the line on the final lap is the winner. The points race is the same as a scratch race except every few laps we sprint for points (4,3,2,1) and the rider that collects the most points throughout the race wins. The mass starts can last anywhere from ten minutes to an hour.

The sprint events are the match sprint and the keirin. The match sprint is a tournament where 2-4 riders race at a time in heats until the last two standing race for the win. The keirin is also raced in heats but in groups of six with the final race competing for the top six places. The match sprints are two or three laps from a standing start and the keirin is motor paced for 5-10 laps until the final 500m when the motor pulls off, signaling the mad dash to the end.

So basically what we need is a well developed aerobic system, steady power at VO2max, a highly repeatable anaerobic capacity, and a vicious sprint...all with one gear and no brakes. So for me that means I will spin a 96 inch gear (50x14) at 28 to 32 mph for many minutes with a cadence in the 100-110 range. For power at VO2 max I want to do the same but with my nose in the wind for 2-8 minutes. The anaerobic capacity efforts are 20 seconds to two minutes at 32-36 mph and the rider who can do 10-20 in an evening gets to dish the pain. And finally the vicious sprint should top out around 40 mph at a cadence of about 140 rpm. And if that's not enough to think about we will want to do all of this madness for 3-5 days in a row on consecutive weekends. It's gonna be a fun year! Until next time, ride fast and swerve!

Winter Training...a week in the life

I've been asked several times recently what it is we are trying to do with our training this time of year. The more I think about it the more I realize that training to race at the national level is as much about lifestyle management as it is about repeating race winning moves. It's about all of the little decisions we make on an hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year basis. What I am trying to do (and why I charge 300 bucks a month for coaching) is integrate several different systems, each with it's own set of rules, unspoken truths, and limitations. A book could be written, and maybe I should do a separate post, about each. These systems include but are not limited to:

1. social network - family, friends, and colleagues
2. bio energetics
3. bio mechanics
4. health, nutrition, and hygiene
5. bicycle equipment and maintenance
6. training tactics and logistics
7. race day tactics and logistics

So with all of that in mind, following is a typical week for this time of year...

Monday - endurance ride and strength training, this is my work at home day so I have been cooking beans and rice and chicken for the week, in addition to maintaining our equipment

Tuesday - recovery ride to the shop, recovery ride home

Wednesday - recovery ride to the shop, recovery ride home, strength training with cadence drills on the rollers

Thursday - morning bike training of jumps and 2x20:00 sweet spot intervals on the way to the shop, recovery ride home

Friday - recovery ride to the shop, recovery ride home, and strength training with cadence drills on the rollers

Saturday - River Ride, hill ride, or mixed intervals and no matter what the format several sprints, then free play time from about 2PM on...

Sunday - The Day of Rest - Farmers Market and quality time with the family - lately Dillon and I have been working on bunnyhopping our BMX bikes, it's an active lifestyle day but no training or commuting

Our focus is on the three cycling basics - endurance, force, and speed skill. We will continue this early winter phase through the holidays, then change it up the first of the year adding some threshold and VO2 max work. Everything we do is specifically geared toward a successful 2010 track racing season.

This time of year recovery is key. We are always recovering to 100%. We are always avoiding illness. We are always sleeping 7-10 hours per night. We are always fine tuning our diet and eating mostly nutritious food. We count calories and percentages of macro nutrients six days a week. And there is absolutely no stacking workouts or block training.

Alrighty then, that's it for now. Until next time, ride fast and swerve!

Winter Training Day 1

Oh my God what a beautiful day to officially start winter training for 2010! On the plate today was 3-4 hours at a good solid endurance pace. So I cued up Verdi's Otello (yes for you Shakespeare scholars it is missing an "h"...maybe you can tell me why?) and headed out to do a quick warm-up then 3 hours, with each hour being 10 watts harder than the previous. At the start of the first hour I dialed up 190 watts with a nice steady 95ish cadence and waited for the heart rate to settle. After about 20 minutes, when everything seemed to be running well, I began to razor it up to the two hour mark and then I dumped it into the 50x14 and proceeded to hold on for dear life. You can see the watts and speed hold steady and then begin to decline while the heart rate steadily drifted up up up until I was almost at threshold heart rate for the final 10 minutes. This time of year that cardiac drift is the marker I like to watch. Once I can ramp the watts all the way to the end AND have my heart rate stay parallel to the effort, then I know I am ready for hard tempo intervals and some sweet spot training.

In the evening was weight training. I am up to two sets of 12 squats with 185 lbs. I was a little worried that today's workout would make the gym work difficult but I was pleasantly surprised to find this not to be the case. Right now I'm doing squats, incline pull-ups, push-ups, back extensions and crunches...2 sets of 12-20 reps of each and really concentrating on form. In and out in about an hour then off to the hot tub! Tomorrow is a working rest day with 90 minutes of commuting at 12 mph. Hopefully I'll be back to full strength for another hard workout on Thursday, in addition to weights on Wednesday and Friday. Until then, ride fast and swerve!

favorite cycling accomplishments of 2009

1. coached Katie over the winter to hang with the big girls in 2009
2. coached Andy to some good results in ultra-endurance MTB events
3. built up to and competed in a 24 hour solo road race
4. held my own at the American Velodrome Challenge at Hellyer
5. held my own at the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge placing 5th in the points race
6. learned how to race omniums and collected plenty of data for my 2010 campaign
7. made many new friends in the track racing community
8. had Rick Adams describe my last points race of the season as brilliant
9. learned how to periodize training programs for all types of athletes and races
10. finally started a sensible and sustainable strength program
11. celebrated ten years of freedom from alcohol
12. celebrated one year at a job that I love
13. began racing on custom fitted handmade bicycles
14. learned that most people are incapable of hearing the truth, hear only what they want to hear, and project their own bullshit on to others...and that's okay

Podium!

I've been working with Andy for a little over a year and a half. In May, under reeeeally muddy conditions, he raced to a second place finish at the Coolest 24 Hour Race. This weekend he placed second again, this time at the Coolest 24 Hour Race Boggs Mountain, under fast and dry conditions, confirming his fitness. Two 24 hour podiums seven weeks apart is impressive! Here is what he had to say in his post race text...

"THANKS A TON FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK AND PERSISTENCE WITH ME! ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THIS COULD HAVE BEEN ACHIEVED WITHOUT YOU DINO! I OWE YOU SO MUCH MORE THAN I CAN GIVE BACK! MY APPRECIATION HAS NO EXPLANATION, IT'S DEPTH IS DEEPER THAN WORDS. I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND, THAT'S ALL I CAN SAY!"

Congratulations Andy, rock on Brutha!

transition

May 2-3 came and went and I completed 272 miles in 24 hours. Not the stellar tt I was hoping for but a valiant effort none the less. Starting the day with 180 miles in the rain was really tough but I didn't really begin to run out of gas until about the 18 hour mark. I had great support from Katie, Steve and Peggy Rex, Doug, Raul, and Scoobie. There are definitely more ultras in my future but not this year.

Right now it's all about track racing. We have already done six events and there are many more to come including the American Velodrome Challenge at Hellyer, the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge in Portland, Elite Districts, Masters Districts, and the International Omnium State Championships tentatively scheduled in September.

My two full time clients are doing really well. Andy placed 2nd in his division at the Coolest 24 Hour MTB Race and Katie just earned her cat 3 upgrade on the track. Now if I can squeeze out a result the season will be a complete success!

Three Days to Go!

Yesterday was the final training ride before the Davis 12/24 Challenge. It was the usual Monday night Sacramento Wheelmen ride and Kenny and I put on a clinic. We took care of our club buddies and destroyed all haters and ride crashers. It was methodical, almost surgical, and we did not say a word to one another until Kenny said "that's all I got." I jumped with 400 meters to go and was drinking Gatorade by the time I crossed the line. Most of the time we just try to make it safe and competitive, but when some meathead crashes our ride and tries to dictate, look out. We can, and will, work you! hahaha!

Saturday we did the River Ride plus 20 miles. I went 38.5mph in the final but was coming from too far back. But hey, 38.5 on a 50x12? I'll take it! Anyway, I don't feel so great off the bike or even on the bike at recovery/endurance pace but when I dig in and motor I feel really strong. It reminds me of what Horner told me about coming on form. I asked him if he feels fatigue when he's going good and he laughed and told me that when he is on form he feels tired off of the bike and the legs even burn when going upstairs. He said you will feel good for about three hours a day. You'll feel like shit for the first hour and then you'll feel good until about the four hour mark when you will feel like shit again but you will be in the front group with a shot to win. Everybody suffers, the guys that do their homework suffer at the front. I think I'm about ready to race!

They are calling for a chance of rain Saturday. When I started training for this race six months ago I said more than once that if it's raining I probably won't finish, but now that the work is done I must say it will take a medical emergency to make me quit. I am totally focused, have great support, and am racing to win it! The worse the weather, the better my chances! I've come a long way in a short time and am really excited about the rest of the season!!!

form finder

On April 11th I ended up skipping Copperopolis, my favorite road race, in favor of riding 400K solo. The goal for the day was to do the Davis Double Century loop from my house. Nothing special, just going out and putting the time on the saddle.

I awoke at 4AM and was on my bike shortly after five. I rode the flat 45 miles straight through to Lake Solano, at a conservative pace, where I filled my bottles and topped off my Camelbak. From there it's 95 miles with 8000 feet of climbing before decending back into the valley for the long slog home.

I don't know what my problem is with Cobb Mountain but by the time I got to Hobergs I was ready to get in the car and scrap the whole ultra-endurance project. Good thing I had a couple of hours to get my shit together. Not sure why I was having a hard time as I was riding well within my limits all day but bad patches are bound to come and go so I rode through it and lived to tell.

Katie met me on Ressurection with food, drinks, and a change of clothes. By this time I was piecing the ride together telling myself I just had to get to the top of the DC then my day would be a success. Next it was I just need to get back to Winter's and then I'd know what to expect for the 24 Hour Challenge. By the time I got to Winters I was finding my rhythmn and was hell bent on finishing the whole ride. I even caught a second wind on Putah Creek Road. There is good mojo on that stretch that invites the you to rail it!

From Stevenson bridge to home was a total slogfest due to not being able to hold a steady pace through the urban jungle. I think next time, that's right I said next time, I will head south on Stevenson and make my way around to Mace, skipping the trek through Davis.

Other notable rides in the last three weeks are two trips to the track for omnium style racing where I held my own with the A group as well as can be expected, a really strong sprint workout, and two local race rides. I think I should be able to transition from this ultra phase right into summer racing. I'm looking forward to the Nevada City Classic, the AVC at Hellyer, the AVC at Alpenrose and most of our district championship events. But meanwhile it's ten days to the 24 Hour Challenge and I'm feeling pretty good!

Davis 300K

I learned my lesson the hard way about how to plan for nutrition on a long ride with few controls. The first leg of the Davis Bike Club 300K was almost 70 miles. So I drank two bottles of Gatorade before, and two bottles during, thinking that would be enough. Wrong! From now on I will probably continue to use the Camelbak to insure proper hydration.

I rode with or near the front group for most of the first leg, and was only seven minutes off the lead at the first control, after a pretty good amount of climbing. I must admit that the usual hammerheads were not in attendance, so the vibe at the front was a little odd.

Anyway, I rode strong for 6-7 hours before the effects of dehydration began to set in. You know, the usual; lack of appetite, loss of power, and eventually cramps. I was sitting in sixth place when the cramps came on the final climb. I lost 5 places in the last 40 miles, finishing 11th in 11 hours and 5 minutes. I didn't bonk and the dehydration was not bad enough to be a major setback.

I am considering scratching Copperopolis in favor of riding 400K alone in two weeks. In the meantime, more long threshold intervals, and a couple of trips to the track for giggles.

ONE Pilates and Fitness

I started doing Pilates about six weeks ago and am pleased to report it's everything I'd hoped it would be. Carol Hockridge over at ONE Pilates and Fitness is an excellent teacher, a strong woman, and a great lady. She's helping me deal with the ridiculous muscle imbalances I've developed over the last several years by doing little to nothing besides riding my bike. The whole deal seams to be keeping the spine in its neutral position while applying maximum torque to the bicycle. Of course it's really more about a healthy and balanced body and mind but I want to win bike races dammit and Carol is helping me figure out how to put more power to the pedals and that is what I have to say about that.

Saturday on the River Ride I got away with a Cat 1, an ex-pro, and another meathead geezer and cracked off an all time personal best for 27 minutes. I followed that up with a killer 7 hour ride on Monday at 220 watts for the day. This week I'm doing some leg strength tempo work and will rest up for the DBC 300k next week. I'm really looking forward to this ride and hoping for great weather.

The legs are good, moral is great, and I'm itching to race!

The Waiting

Here is Steve standing on his own two feet! And yes that frame on the alignment table is my precious. I've been riding the tin can for what seems like an eternity. I can't wait to race this bike!!!

On the training front things are going well. Since I last wrote, three weeks ago, I did one week of mixed intervals for kicks and a bit of a blowout, followed by two days off, skipping my weekly long ride. Then I did one week of long tempo intervals and a long steady ride of 100 miles in six hours. Last week I did three consecutive days of threshold intervals followed by a 100 mile ride in five hours that ended with the Monday Wheelmen ride. In the middle of the long ride I did two hours at 220 watts with a sprint every five minutes. Yes that is 24 sprints with a peak of 900-1000 watts and an average of 700-800 for ten seconds!!! Ouch! The next hour was solid tempo at 244 watts and then the Monday night ride. I spent a long time on the front wondering why no one was coming around. heeheehee

I've committed to the Davis Bike Club's 300k on March 28. That should be a pretty good test of my fitness. After that it's Copperopolis and a solo 250 mile ride and then the big taper to the 12/24. And when I say taprer I really mean race sharpening where I'll gain race specific fitness while also getting plenty of rest relative to my chronic (long term) training load.

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bike update...brazing has begun

Woohoo!!! I got some good training this week. Long sub-threshold intervals, micro-bursts, and 30s & 1min intervals. Yesterday I did a season best one minute and then backed it up on the River Ride today with an additional 5 watts and a season best 2 minutes. Crazy Baby!

bike update...gettin' jiggy

Oooooh la la. My bike is in the jig!!! Guess I best be picking some paint!

Hello Moto!

I went out on the tt-bike once the weather broke and did a little threshold test. I cranked off a five minute VO2 blowout at 357 watts and then headed conservatively into 2x20 minutes at 40K/hill climb pace. I was hoping for a jump of 20 watts, up to 300 from 280, so I settled in at 300 and was suprised at how easy it was, and how fast the time flew by. So for the second interval I started conservatively again, but this time turned up the heat in the second half. Much to my suprise I averaged 314 watts for the final ten minutes. That's an increase of 11% during a base training phase. Pretty exciting. What I'm going for is a well established estimate of my new threshold, so I will follow up with an actual 40K time trial and a one hour hill climb. Then the hard work of long intervals will begin.

Savage!

I haven't written about training lately. The bread and butter has been the River Ride, and a long ride, surrounded by easy commuting. But, I'm done with my winter base program thanks to the intervention of Mother Nature. It seems as good a place as any to rest up and start turning strength into speed. Last Monday I did a 135 mile slog from Vacaville to Pope Valley and back to Sac through Winters and Davis. On bike nutrition is going great and I only stopped for a total of 40 minutes AND I managed to finish the ride at the same weight as when I started meaning I was rehydrated at the end of the day. Now I'm heading into some structured threshold work in the form of long 20 minute intervals and some hard short climbs, in addition to building to a 250-300 mile ride in early April. And there is that pesky core strength program that's gone in fits and starts. Hopefully I've hired some one that will hold me accountable. We'll see. It sure would help.

My new bike? Thanks for asking :-)

It has been brought to my attention that I'm not the only one excited about my new bike, soooo here's your update...We've got nine bikes in the que, one of them is mine...Dig them buckets full of dreams!!!

I got the bike fever woohoo!!!

And the only known cure is a new bike! True Temper S3 tubes, Alpha Q fork, Ritchey WCS stem and seat post, Deda Italian bend bars, DuraAce 10 speed, R700 compact crankset and bottom bracket, Chris King headset, Fizik Poggio saddle, 32 spoke Open Pro PowerTap/DuraAce wheel set yeeeeeehooooooeeeey!!!!!!! Metallic Royal Blue with Metallic Sky Blue panels with white tape. Oooooooh yeah, this bike is gonna rock. Steve was working on the seat stays and dropouts last Friday!!!!!!!!

Bike-Fit-Whac-A-Mole

So I'm just riding along when I start to notice way too much float on my right pedal. Turns out the cleat was totally worn down to a nub and starting to crack. Time to dig around the garage for a fresh pair. Might as well get around to addressing the nagging discomfort in my right hip and head into the season with a good fit. This has been an on going project since The Steve made some major adjustments back in October. I had been procrastinating the final drop of the saddle for fear of opening this can of worms I call Bike-Fit-Whac-A-Mole. Anyway, I got the cleat angle I wanted but then started getting pain on the IT band just below the knee. I checked the seat angle and set back and made minor adjustments on the fly. No luck. Dug around my cycling library and concluded that the new IT pain was possibly caused by too high saddle. I lowered the saddle a half cent past the goal and got pain on the front of the left knee. 99% chance this is a saddle too low pain. So I put the saddle back up to the goal, which, by the way, is a full 2 centimeters lower than it was last season. The right leg just below the knee IT pain returned. The problem went round and round my head. Seat too high, IT pain, seat too low, other knee front pain. Back and forth, to and fro, a vicious circle. Oh yeah, The Steve mentioned I might have a leg length discrepancy. On the way to work the light came on. It had to be the the Q-factor. I moved my right cleat a few millimeters out moving my right foot a few millimeters in and voila! Problem solved. Of course we won't know for sure until my 150 mile ride on Monday.

tic-toc tic-toc

In an attempt to recover for hard weekend rides I've been commuting at an easy pace. We've been doing the Saturday River Ride pretty much every week and then I do my long ride alone. This week's long ride was 130 miles, 75 on the road and 55 on the tt-bike...all on the Parkway. This gave me a chance to work on my nutrition strategy, my lighting for the night loop, and the specificity of the event. For this week's nutrition experiment I did the road bike portion with my Camelbak filled with water and three Elixir tabs. The Camelbak is way more comfortable on the road than on the mountain bike. I'm thinking about trying a 100 oz reservoir so I can do 10-12 hours on one refill. And, as a side benefit/discovery, there will be no more worrying about stopping for water on 100 miles tempo rides. I hopped on the tt-bke and was able to cruise comfortably at 20 mph for about three hours. The lights worked perfectly and with two complete sets I am good to go there. And of course the specificity of the race requires riding all day on the road bike then jumping on the tt-bike and riding 14 hours through the night. Not exactly tactical rocket science but definitely an important detail none the less. The next big ride is Mt. Diablo. I'll be doing a threshold test to see where we're at. The Chronic Training Load has stabilized in the 105-110 range and recovery is starting to be more predictable. Oh yeah, I've dropped 3-4 pounds and am back in the groove there too. Rock on!

Plan B

I was hoping to go around the lake with Marshall Grade thrown in for giggles but I awoke to a cold and wet day and decided to invoke the Hamby Rule. The Hamby Rule states that the a workout may be shortened to two-thirds if the weather is crappy. Cold is okay, wet is okay, but cold and wet is a no go. Any kind of storm advisory moves the workout indoors. Anyway, I waited for the storm to pass then headed out for some sweet spot and sub-threshold intervals.

3x10:00 @ 250-260
2x 25:00 @ 230-240
1x10:00 @ 230 standing into the wind

That's 90 minutes of quality cruising.

Go Big!

I logged 18 hours in the saddle this week with building strength and endurance the only goal.

Tuesday I rode from my house to Forresthill and then six miles up Mosquito to the snow line. 8000-10,000 feet of climbing and 140 miles in ten hours.

Thursday was 5000 feet of climbing around Grass Valley and Nevada City with the family.

Friday, back to work recovery commute.

Saturday, River Ride, which for us is 60 miles in three hours fifteen minutes.

Next week is less miles and more sub-threshold intervals.