Late April Training and Racing

The last few weeks of training and racing have felt pretty solid. I've yet to feel particularly strong except on a few occasions so far this season. It may just be my sensations on particular days or during particular workouts, but most of the time I haven't felt exceptionally strong. I mostly just feel normal, even though I think that I've been getting somewhat stronger as time goes on.

My biggest dilemma right now is that I want to maintain or increase my volume for the sake of maintaining or increasing my ability to ride strong day after day, especially in light of upcoming stage races. Yet, at the same time, I want to do what I can to increase the intensity of my harder workouts. And, I would appreciate a 3-5 lb drop in body weight for the sake of better climbing, acceleration and general efficiency, but at the same time, have a relatively hard time losing any significant amount of weight without feeling a loss of strength while trying to lose weight.

In the 3 weeks leading up to Mt Hood, I'm thinking that I will do one week of higher volume, while trying to maintain some solid intensity (though presumably not as high as would otherwise take place). With 2 weeks to go, I will do a more standard volume week (about 400 miles) with as high of an intensity as I feel my body can handle without inviting injury or seriously compromising the intensity of my workouts. With 1 week to go, I will probably do a slightly reduced volume week, but attempt to maintain a high degree of intensity... hopefully enough intensity to maintain or increase my race-readiness, but also not so much that my body is struggling to recover from whatever workouts I do.

Part of my trouble now is just that I would like to just train, lose weight and work on my top end speed, but I haven't felt 100% lately, and of course, I feel like I should be focusing on getting adequate recovery leading up to Hamilton and Hood. So, there's something of a conflict of interest between the things I would like to accomplish, but most likely I'll just aim for my intermediate goal of being as well prepared for Hood as I can manage.

Early April training

Early April has had some solid training and a few good road races (Copperopolis and Sea Otter). I was happy to ride Diablo at a solid pace with Justin and Lucas the day after Copperopolis, but I feel a need to work in some more intense intervals (2-4 minutes) for better aerobic capacity and lactate management.

I've had some good mixed intensity workouts and group rides, but some structured intervals will probably be more effective in gaining the race fitness I am looking for. Right now, I feel like I'm gaining some good race fitness through racing and some hard training rides, but a mix of personal and racing obligations has made me lose some of my good habits of including an LT workout and VO2 max workout each week. I definitely include those intensities throughout the week, but it's less structured and probably lower volumes of that kind of work than I would prefer.

The good weather will make hydration a bit harder now, and more than anything, I'm hoping not to get tempted to ride too hard in the warm weather and/or get a sore throat from the dry air. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to intense warm-weather workouts and hopefully losing an extra couple of pounds this next month for the coming summer races (like Hood and Nationals).

March racing

March was a good month in a lot of respects. There was some solid training at various points throughout the month, and I have felt some strength gains at the higher end intensities that I hope will continue to develop as I head into the parts of the season that start to matter more, both to me personally and insofar as there are some bigger races.

I was pleased to do well at Madera, but had hoped to win the uphill TT and ride faster in the flat TT, but my times were still solid, even if I feel I can do better. The crit was fine and the RR enjoyable. I'm still working on gaining some fitness and the confidence that comes with it, but I'm sure that 3rd place in the GC behind Ben Jacques-Maynes and Scott Zwisanski is nothing to be ashamed of.

San Dimas was a race I had hoped to do well at, and I was pleased with my performance in the TT, in spite of developing a deep-throat cough in the days before the race. By Sunday's crit, my throat felt fairly raw and my legs didn't have very good snap, so I pulled out of the crit. Still, I was reassured that if I'm feeling well, I will be able to race alright against a good field.

Now I'm working on trying to lose a couple of pounds, improve my acceleration, and get more prepared for hilly road races. In may, I will again focus on time-trial workouts, which I hope will help me at Mt Hood.

March Training, week 1

The first week of March was an okay week, but it was overshadowed by rain in the first half of the week. It's actually been quite nice the last couple of days, though, and the quality of my riding has likewise improved a bit (as it always does when the weather turns for the better).

Given, I ride whether the weather is good or not, and lightning is usually the only thing that will push me indoors if I'm planning on doing a serious training session, but I still find that I can't go very hard in the cold or the wet. Doing workouts in the rain is almost always marked by feelings of an inability to go hard, because it feels like your legs never warm up and your lungs never open up fully. That being said, I guess you just do what you can.

Anyway, the training I've had in mind for the 3 or 4 weeks leading up to the Madera and San Dimas Stage Races is focused around getting a bit more time in on the TT bike (for Madera) and doing uphill efforts at above threshold paces (for San Dimas). So, to that end, I did some hard intervals at around racing effort on Thursday, following a longer ride with some flat and uphill LT work on Wednesday. Friday was an easy recovery day out with my girlfriend, and we both benefitted from having an easy 3 hours or so riding easily. The beautiful weather and good company made for an excellent day on the bike, in spite of feeling tired in the legs. Saturday was a good ride marked by easy riding with several 2-5 minute uphill efforts inserted throughout... Saturday was a reassuring ride, because the hardest series of intervals was done at about 4 hours into the ride, but they were still about as fast as they have been lately when done at hour 2 of my workouts... In any case, I think that my maximal aerobic output is probably slowly climbing, as it did last year. From there it becomes more a problem of working on lost weight, improved acceleration and better tactics that will get good results.

Along those lines, I would love it if I were 5 pounds lighter going into San Dimas, and even Madera, because the uphill time trial at San Dimas is a race that I would like to do well at. Last year I was able to maintain or increase my strength a bit through the summer, but lost 5-6 pounds during those months. I feel as though I have good overall strength, but that the extra weight loss would be helpful in that time trial. Likewise, acceleration is always something I would like to do better at, and a 3% reduction in weight would probably help that aspect of my cycling. Even though I'm at a similar weight to last year (about 163-165), I hope to slowly lose a few pounds by this summer, but will not usually fret over it, since I find that I do well by fueling hard training rather than limiting my food intake in order to lose weight. Naturally, some weight seems to come off in the warmer weather and when workouts get harder and racing picks up more. It just would have been nice to have spring come earlier, so that could happen sooner.

February Training

February was a pretty solid month of training with a handful of good workouts. I was reassured a few times throughout the month about my growing fitness and the prospect that I will be able to race well later in the season. My immediate goals are to increase my maximal aerobic power and lactate threshold. To that end, I've included in my workouts some uphill intervals of about 4-5 minutes as well as some hard extended climbing efforts.

I think I am usually unable to put in a full effort when the weather is too cold or if the weather turns wet, but in good conditions I was able to put in at least a few good workouts that seemed to be almost as fast as they were towards the middle of last season. I just hope that I am able to improve upon that aerobic power and LT strength so that I will be in good shape going into the San Dimas Stage Race, seeing as how the first "big" goal of my season is to be able to perform well there (especially in the uphill TT).

And, of course, there have been a couple of flat, fast road races these past couple of weeks that have provided very good workouts and have reassured me that both myself and my team are heading towards being competitive at a relatively high level of competition. Hopefully we can get the results that I think we are capable of as the season progresses.

January Training

Still building overall conditioning. Now training includes some substantial VO2 max-type work once or twice a week, in addition to significant amounts of riding at or slightly below lactate threshold.

December Training

Still trying to build endurance and stamina through longer rides and plenty of riding around lactate threshold intensities. Every so often there were significant bouts of work done above threshold, but not as much as will happen later in the season when it is warmer and when racing is underway.