ABD TT#3 Report

Another round of beating your head into a wall is over. I am happy to say I have made no gains over the last couple of months. That said I have found that have made no losses either. Meh...here's the pics. That's all any of you care about anyway...


Showed up early enough to see JAnd do his run.


Cheering section - L to R - JF, Little P, Mrs. P


GO JAND GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Time for us to go. Clipping in for torture....


"Hi...I'm f'n nuts!"


Reset the computer....and.......3.....2......1.....GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I burried my head for the first 5 minutes. I didn't look at the screen because I knew I would go too hard if I saw I was behind in order to catch up....or if I was ahead in order to maintain position. So I didn't look.


I was rocking out to a mix of punk and metal. Total "kill everyone" kind of stuff.

I hit my normal wall about 4-5 mintes in, but pushed through. I looked up to see I was behind...by a lot. JF was in front of me. Honestly he's got the chops even though he's new so I really didn't let that bother me too much, but I was at least gpong to try to pull him back.

Up until now I had been running about 270W. I shifted and started bringing around 300W in the second 5 minutes.

"OOooooo"

With a During the last set of 5 minutes I started to crack. I made myself take it easy for 1.5 minutes. Rode easier than I could just in hopes of recovering to finish strong. It kind of worked, but not really. I tried with about 2.5-3 minutes left to stand and go at it. I was within "50 or 60 feet" of JF when I did. When I stood...so did he. That just told me he wasn't going to just hand anything over.

At first I felt bad because I figured he thought I was standing to sprint to the end, but it was way too early for that. I was just hoping to get a quick jump to turn over the distance between us. Turns out when I stood I didn't upshift so my power dropped. Ooops. I sat back down to compensate, but by then JF had taken the opportunity to lay down some power.

I tried to stand and sprint at the end, but I didn't have much. Not the usual punch I have. When done...I felt like puking. So...I did it right. I definitely left some out there though. Just couldn't tap into the deep well if that makes sense.


Shoot me.


Seriously...shoot me.


JF took the win in style. The guy is a naturl athlete that will accel at this cycling thing with no problem. I keep telling him the only thing that will limit how far he goes is how much time he wants to spend on it. He won't be a 5 long and will be a 4 even shorter.

This time he won the CM 19-29. He also got to pick up his medal from the previous TT


To top it off I still owe him a beer to make up for the last $5 from registration I owe him. Will it never end?

So...I ended up 13th out of 28 who took the start out of Cat 4. Furthest up in the field so far, but 2 seconds slower than my last one on the "Flat" course. I did beat Rob Jungels...by like 7 seconds...which just means there is a story there. I'm guessing he had something go wrong or he was doing it as a recovery in street shoes and blue jeans.

Tuesday night at the shop we're doing the mother of all indoor trainer sessions. We're down to 1x45' at threshold. Those sessions have made it easier to race already. They have convinced me that I can ride at an intense effort for much longer than I thought I could.

Congrats to JAnd, JF and everyone else who went out there (MRIDan). Nothing like paying $25 so you can sit in one place and turn yourself inside out for 16 minutes.

Almost time to shave the legs. Mrs. P is thrilled.

ABT TT #3

Today is ABD TT#3. I am something like 12th overall with 32:42 or something. Today is another "flat" course. They basically weigh you, put in a drag coefficient and let you beat your head against a wall for 10K or about 16-ish minutes.

I pulled 16:03 the last time I did a flat one. I would like to kick 10-20 seconds off of that today. I think it's possible. We'll see.

Little P is sitting here smiling, and eating cookies. I guess he's better.

One down

One rig down. This is aham's rig. Nice rig. Almost identical to mine. I had it in the shop for 2 weeks as all sorts of crap went on at the psimet house. Aham is climbing the walls - I just know it. I usually try to get him turned around in a few days, but with little P's surgery - and subsequent re-asmission to the hospital this week - everything got messed up.

Well I promised it and I deliver. Bask in the awesome. Even if it's a crappy shot.


All that's left is Smokinmile's rig....well if you don't count my own and the TT bike adjustments....

Smokin has some serious gear going on. A beautiful 105 compact with 165mm crank arms.....brand new DA clampers....wowzers. New pads, chain, crank, brakes. tape, cables, housings, BB, etc...it will be a new bike.

Uh...yeah...

Just heard the funniest quote and had to share it: "You can't pull down your pants while you're holding a popcicle!" - said Mrs.P to little P

10 years ago this would have meant something totally different and the context would have been a whole lot more interesting.

Sorry...

Lots of stuff has been going on. None of it good. Little P underwent a tonsilectomy, Adnoidectomy, and ear tube surgery this week. He's PO'd.

He can't talk so he's resorting to hitting. Great.

In the shop: Aham's rig and SmokinMiles's rig.

Aham's is in for a normal winter re-do. New cables, housings, brake pads, full cleaning, etc.

Smokin's is in for new brakes, new crank and a full teardown. Both are done as far as the teardown goes. Still waiting on some parts for Smokin's

She came by yesterday to pay for parts and brought by some Panera. The soup was just what Little P needed. He ate it up. First real food he's eaten in a long time.

I signed up for Hillsborough-Roubaix yesterday morning. I also signed up for 2 races in the Super Crit series in South Beloit. With everything going on I did not ride this week (outside of an easy ride on Tueday with MJH2). I'll consider this my week off. Need to come back hard. In good news the stress of this week caused me to lose 4 lbs.

Could it be??

Saturday is looking good. By good I mean not snowing, not below zero, and relatively clear. I'm easy and have low standards. We put together a shop ride for Saturday at 10:00am.

I have been climbing the walls. I put some more time in on the rollers. I actually video recorded some of it. I will get around to posting at some point. It's boring though. Just smooth rolling. It does have some 1-legged roller riding I did, and 1 fall *ouch* that happened when I did a bonehead thing while trying to find new ways to start up.

I think I have been training too hard. TT on Sunday, Heavy weights and running on Monday, 2x25'@ threshold on Tuesday, Heavy weights and 30 minutes of running on Wednesday (a lot for me), 30 minutes of rollers with about 40 minutes of yoga on top of that. Doesn't look like much when I write it down, but it feels like a lot. I am beat. A 3 hour ride on Saturday will wipe me out for sure. I'm taking today off.

...now....where to go for lunch...

Jan Totals

Spurred on by aham's blog I decided to catch up on my log book. Ran some numbers for Jan. Not overly impressive, but they are what they are:

Riding (mostly trainer) : 20h23m
Strength (core and weights) : 5h50m
Running (le suck) : 2h <- Mainly 10 minute warmups for core work.

I'm not really following my "training plan" a la Friel, but wtf...I look better than I have and I am putting some good numbers down and it's only the beginning of Feb.

I did 3 indoor TT's all Cat 4:
1/2 hour VQ TT - 6 out of 9
10k ABD TT #1 - 15 out of 28
10k ABD TT #2 - 12 out of 23

Hopefully we can get on the road here soon and I can maybe start getting some runs in outside. I can't stand the treadmill. This weekend is looking good for some group riding out of the shop. Team + anyone else who shows. I hope the weather holds...

EDIT: OH and how can I forget...I borrowed some rollers and tried them out tonight. Awesome. I love them and I am surprisingly naturally good at riding them. I moved out of the dooreay within 10 minutes or so. I still need help starting (hand on a wall), but that's it. I even got confident enough that I put my TT bike on it and rode in the aero bars. Awesome.

ABD TT#2

Everyone has been asking me how the TT went yesterday. Funny thing is I don't really know. I didn't have a clear goal going into it and therefore even after having seen my results I don't know if that was good or bad.

In general I guess I have maintained my fitness. I finished mid pack cat 4 again.

JF - a new member to our team decided to give it a shot. He has had a road bike for a while, but really hasn't put much time in on it for quite a while. He's in good shape, but doesn't have a lot of saddle time. In essence I was more excited about watching his ride than my own. I love seeing new people get involved in the sport and I have a feeling he's going to end up loving racing.

So here I am a 'semi-trained' cat 4 (only because I fast-talked the upgrade with a lot of talk of cyclocross and TT's) and JF just about beats me. I took the time to manually record his power profile and plot it against my own after the fact.



If you know what you're looking at you'll see that with a little aerobic conditioning/threshold conditioning this guy can possibly kick a lot of cat 5 (and 4)ass this year. I should have savored my victory while I had the chance.

Here he is warming up before the TT (on the right). The guy ont he bike on the left is another BF member mridan. The guy who looks fast standing still is Andy Skeen.


In the pain cave - there's cobwebs, bats, and scary things. Time to clean it out and makes it a nice home. You'll be spending lots of time in there.


Beat. At this point I am guessing he was debating puking. This is a good thing.


After he was done I went over and caught the end of Julie's race. She put in a hard effort as well. She was especially pleased that her picture was being taken right after she finished.


mridan was up next. I wrote his power down as well and shouted as much encouragement as I could. I think he too has been bitten by the competitive bug.

All in all a good TT. Glad I did it. Now...Tuesday night will be me running the Bicycle Heaven trainer class. 2x25'@threshold. Hmmm....need to put together some tunes...