death by turbo

Snow covers the ground outside.

i nearly crashed 4 times trying to get home from work yesterday in rush hour traffic before i thought fuck this! I`m getting a taxi!!!

Brimley road hill repeats cancelled for this week.

Instead its death by turbo.

15mins warm up

5mins at FTP or 356w

5mins cool down

then 5 times 1.30min at 117% of ftp or around 390w-420w.

Got to get some bigger gears on my bike again, spinning at 110rpm is just making it all the harder

i breath hard and heavy, my legs scream, i shout internally at my self to keep going just one more time.

heres the details

wish it were sunny outside.....

back in the fridge

Well its back to the grind in the GTA.

But unperturbed I'll try to keep things rolling, race season is just around the corner, the sun was even out today.

Kept it busy this weekend with a 3x20x10 threshold interval session Saturday at my new FTP level, which hurt a lot!

20 mins at 340w, 3 times, although in fact i totally popped just into my third set but keep it going none the less despite the drop in power output, cause thats just how we roll right!?

Mental beefcake!!! or mentalist masochist perhaps...I feel that way sometimes.

Just gotta keep asking yourself "how much do you want it!?"

Ended dizzy and reeling, hypoglycaemic, shot, but satisfied. Got to remember to eat in the middle of those workouts.

Today was a simple tempo ride; 300w avg for 60mins.

Tomorrow I rest, then Tuesday its off to the bluffs for some VO2 max workouts on the climb!

Nice!

Last day of Training Camp.

Well I'm writing this sat at the airport in Tucson after an amazing trip.

I'm sad to leave but happy to have been here and take home what I've picked up and learnt whilst being here.

Anyway I finished off the trip with a ride to the top of Mt Lemon, more or less, 21 miles of steady 4-7% gradient and up to 8000ft, from where i set of that was over 2000m of vertical ascent!



and to start it off i began with a 20min ITT to test me threshold power level again.

i hadn't meant to i planned on doing 3x20x 10 level 4 workouts, but after starting with a steady output of 370w and feeling fine i thought i might as well kick it for the last 10 mins and see if i could raise my peak levels.

I finished the 20 mins with an average power output of 375w which sets my FTP at a new high of 356w - 9w above my last season peak and although i've not weighed myself in a while i'm pretty sure i've lost a lot of weight being here so my overall power-weight ratio will be even higher than last year.

anyway after the hard slog up the climb i had the fun of a 21mile decent :0) racing pick-up trucks down the mountain at up wards of 72kmph sweet!!!!

anyway thats it trips over for this year now the really hard work begins, I've just got to make sure i continue with the workouts at threshold and VO2 max and keep up the weight loss.

Anyway Coach Mirek had some very encouraging words for me about my progress and potential (prefixed as usual with the mention of being too fat)

So i'm going to keep focused, work hard and see what happens this time next year.

anyway here is the details from yesterdays ride.

This time tomorrow I'll be in the snow and cold of Toronto again. wondering where the snow and daylight went. Glad I got those winter shoes finally before leaving. brrrrr.


first race is in 6weeks.....Good Friday road race.

hopefully i won't get dropped this year!

The last weekend

Blue skies, clear blue skies,
open roads, and cacti....

Its been a wonderful trip...hard, challenging, painful yet exhilarating.

Lots of hard grinds up steep climbs, rolling hills and desert flats. Already counting the days till i get back here next year.

today was due to the the end of a hard 3days of riding.

140km and 30mins of seated big ring, low cadence intervals up Mt Lemon a steady 4-7%).


Then standing big ring intervals at a higher cadence up Gate's pass (image left) which topped out at 15%, sandwiched within a 100Km ride.

Then today was another blatt on the local shoot out, a 180km hammer fest!

however karma had other plans for me today, just as we reached the outer limits of the Indian reservation , the tempo picked up and i dropped down a huge rut in the road. At first, despite the bone shuddering crack, i thought had escaped without damage, but shortly after my rear tire began to deflate and i watched the pack disappear up the road in front of me. At that point i knew it was over, there was no way i was going to hook back on the end of that again today.

resigned to my fate i fixed my flat, and headed back home, only to find my front tire and taken the full force of the impact as well and was also flat. (see this is why i always carry two spare tubes) at that point i could only hope to be able to make it the 35km back home incident free.

which of course, given the fact I'm writing this now i managed. Slightly more successfully than some of my fellow riders. I met another a short distance away from me that had fell foul to the very same hole, yet his fondness for deep section wheels and his lack of a valve extender had resulted in him being stranded on the very same reservation i was now gleefully peddling away from.

I also saw "team" charlie one of the young riders one the camp get caught out by the unforgiving pace of the group. He picked a bad time to pee, by the time he had gotten back on the pace was up and he was left in the dust, with no hope of catching back on. I saw him later as i wrote this sitting in Starbucks...you live and learn.

active recovery

Today was a rain day, instead of the planned 150km ride we did a short 50km. I have to say I was happy about that my legs were toast today.

Anyway we missed the rain, which is a good cause with no drainage system when it rains here the streets become a river system.

instead i headed down to (Andy) Gilmore frames, a long term friend of Mirek, which was a treat! he had some really beautiful custom steel and Alu frames!

desire is a terrible mistress to have.....if i can sell a kidney before i leave, i would love to order a custom scandium frame.

sponsors are welcome ;0).

Anyway unfortunately missing one day of full training means i now have three days of hard riding to do, including the shoot-out Saturday.

I can see some humble pie coming to town...



Here's the details of today's ride

2 a day

So we started 2 a day work outs today

90km in the morning, interspersed with 4 vo2max intervals on Mt Lemon. i got up to mile 8 of the climb then bombed it back down before spinning home.

some food and some sleep then we headed out for a tempo ride of 50km.

felt strong all day but was starting to Bonk by the end of the 2nd ride.

big steak for supper, and a salad. no carbs.

carbs are for breakfast, lunch and post rides.

weight is starting to drop off, but getting down to 175lbs is still a long way to go....

its meant to rain tomorrow... but we ride regardless. Flanders stylee!

here's the details if this morning

and this afternoon

Its like florida for cyclists

Today I woke up tired. The last week and especially the last two days had been hard for my body to assimilate.

A quick look at my training journal reveals and massive in crease in training load about 3-4x what i had been doing prior to turning up here. Which is cool but combined with dieting makes for a lot of stress for the body and mind to deal with.

Thankfully today was an easy day, just a short spin down to the local bike shop "miles ahead" where they sorted out Derek with a mini overhall and new chain for $10, shit!! now thats service.

After that I returned home for some nutrition and a afternoon nap before heading down to starfucks for a latte and some decent internet access.

tomorrow we start 2 a day training sessions morning intervals and afternoon spins about 140km in total a hard 90km and an easier 50km ....yeay!!!

anyway I'm starting to realize this place is like Florida for Canadian cyclists! we passed the Canadian woman's champion mountain biker on the road today taking in some winter miles, and Saturdays shoot out was full of Kunuks.

I guess its a bit like heading to Mecca.

heres todays files