Back on track

Thanks in advance for excusing what will go down in history as my weakest post title to date. Q2 2008 closed out Monday, so here's my six-month training wrapup: 487 247 hours total, a high for the past four seasons of my "comeback." 187 were on the bike, not a high, but more than last year. The other 60 were running and bricks, which are just run/bike sessions where I left the Polar running the entire time.

The loyal few already know the beginning of the year went pretty swell, with running PRs at nearly every distance attempted. The bike season started out nicely too, with a solid base combining with a new svelte physique to put me near the front on most of the climbs, although the podium eluded me. After that, I'm not exactly sure what happened. In May I piled on the bike miles, but also continued to run, albeit reducing my mileage from an already pretty low 25-30/week to roughly half that, mostly races. My theory was the bike racing would take care of the intensity, and the volume of running and riding would knock off even a few more pounds, and I'd be killing it on the climbs by June. Well, we know that did not happen. My weight went up, not down, my running times slowed by 15 seconds per mile (remember that 2 seconds per pound per mile rule?), and on the bike I just got weaker and weaker.

After Six Gaps I started to recognize that I'd failed to plan a real break, so I tried to work one in, but I even fucked that up. I took some three and four day stretches, but I was reluctant to cut back more for fear of getting even fatter. My hamstring started to bother me too, but there were running races that interested me coming up, so I kept trying to hold it together. At least I had the sense to stay away from the weekend bike races (that had more to do with cents though, to be honest). Finally at the end of June I decided to stop running for a bit to see if that helps. It's been eight days already. My hamstring needs a chance to heal, although I can't say its gotten any better. I took another four days off the bike too, then resumed training last weekend.

Last but not least, I reviewed my training files for the past few months, and found intensity on the bike was notably lacking. Closer examination and expert analysis revealed multiple causes. One, I am not particularly fond of doing structured intensity in training, so I hardly did any. Two, I was relying on bike races for intensity, and while I did a shitload of races, back in May I was so fit that I wasn't under a lot of pressure in them. Relative to years past, when hanging on the climbs meant zone 5 or get dropped, this year I was cruising. Not the way to get to the next level. Last but not least, once June rolled around, I was cooked (thanks Doug for Six Gaps, the final dozen nails in my fitness coffin), and every ride was a struggle just to keep pedaling. I know age has something to do with it, but I'm not accustomed to riding along at 28 kph and seeing my HR at 80 bpm. Perhaps my "junk zone" needs to be adjusted down, but out of 36 bike hours in June, 10 were under 100 bpm. Yeah, I was toast.

The weekend went better. Not running already seems to have brought my legs around. Since whatever I'd been doing wasn't working, it's safe to change everything. Are you listening Colin? (I mean about the rest part. Your training obviously works) I've decided to go back to what worked so well in the winter, except to switch it to cycling. This means shorter, but more frequent workouts, with lots of intensity. Saturday I went to Big Blue and did some testing. My power is down 5-10%, and with my weight up 3-4%, my times sucked, 5:35 and 5:30. I did a few more hill efforts on the way home and called it a day at 2.5 hours. Sunday I did just two hours with 40 minutes of cruise intervals at high cadence on the flats. Monday just my sunset recovery ride, but instead of dogging it and coasting around like I've been doing, I kept my cadence near 100 with light pedal pressure, managing to hold the HR over 100 for the entire hour. Yes, it's come to this.

Last night, I went back to the track in scenic Londonderry (home of Feltslave), which is what passes for a velodrome here in New England. In 2006 I raced there several times, but never made it last year. Heading up, it rained pretty hard, but pressing onward, I drove out of it and got there by 6. Only about a dozen riders showed up, but the track was dry and it stayed that way all night except for a brief shower that happened to coincide with one of my match sprint rounds. That's right, we did match sprints. First though, after making some quick changes to my bike (it had been setup with long cranks and lower gearing for winter roller riding) with my chief fashion consultant Garabed, I got warmed up in an "unknown distance" race, where nobody knows when the finish bell will ring. This did not matter to me, because I was just warming up and getting a feel for track riding again. I wish it were not so far a drive up there. This stuff makes you a better rider, no question about it. Racing without brakes means you keep your head up and your eyes open.

I had my monster 56 chainring on there, which scares everyone off, but paired with a 17 in the back my gear is actually a touch smaller than most people run. I still don't have a sprint though, so in most of them I need to jump early and try to burn people off. In the first one, I got beat at my own game as one guy bolted and I never reeled him in, and the third guy rode my wheel and came around me. I don't remember all the results of the other rounds, but we weren't doing eliminations. You can see all the spikes on the HR graph. Note the flat elevation line... As for intensity, yeah, you have to ride very hard to get your body to respond like that in such a short time period. I was maxing out my HR even though the efforts were less than one minute. Intense.

The longer effort on the right side of the graph (second to last one) was a miss-and-out. For those who don't know, this is where the last rider over the line gets pulled from the race each lap. Since my sprint sucks, my strategy was to drill it and stay near or at the front, and let the rest of them fight it out behind me. Once we were down to only four of us left, they had us recover for a few laps and then we did a four-up match sprint. I managed third. The final blip was an Australian pursuit, and I did not fair too well, but I was cooked. But the whole night was a blast. Thanks for reading.