Working Hard to Get Dropped

Got some good efforts in the last couple days, and some new pics for the blog. First up:

Sat - OBB Ride

Ouch. It was a bit slow around Land's End, so i jumped to the front to pick up the pace.. That went fine until we got close to the airport, and i did a big pull, holding ~410w for nearly 2mins. Then British John got on the front and did a monstrous pull. I was on his wheel, and was getting not a lot of draft, and no recovery...soon enough we're at the bottom of the Panorama incline...i hung back trying to get my HR down a bit, but the group kept the pace up the hill, and i got shelled there..yikes! I had burned all my '1mins' matches on Thursday...just nothing left in the legs. Prolly would have been fine had i moved up in the pack, closer to the front, but i thought i'd muscle it up..d'oh.

Ended up in a very disorganized small group, people didn't know if they were doing 30sec pulls or rotating paceline...gaah.. We had a window where we stood a chance of regaining the group, but that was all for naught. Got in a great workout either way.

Fun number are my peak hour and the entire ride:

Peak 60min (236 watts):
    Duration:      1:00:16
    Work:          848 kJ
    TSS:           105.3 (intensity factor 1.026)
    Norm Power:    274
    VI:            1.16
    Distance:      36.087 km
                     Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0      781    236     watts
    Heart Rate:      119    189    171     bpm
    Cadence:         35     124    98     rpm
    Speed:           4.4    60.7    36.1     kph

274 NP - yow! That's some serious work, as indicated by my average HR: 171bpm.

Full ride:

 Entire workout (194 watts):
    Duration:      2:55:36
    Work:          2031 kJ
    TSS:           238.8 (intensity factor 0.908)
    Norm Power:    242
    VI:            1.25
    Distance:      94.295 km
                     Min   Max    Avg
    Power:           0    1033    194     watts
    Heart Rate:      91    189    158     bpm
    Cadence:         26    126    94     rpm
    Speed:           3.7   65.2   32.5     kph

Again, a very high NP (i figure my threshold is actually around 267w..). Also pretty high was my 30min NP, at 293w, but NP values under an hour aren't really reliable..still, my HR was 179bpm. Cut out the water on the ride back, figured i'd ridden enough and wanted to leave a bit of TSS for Sunday!

Sunday - fun MTB urban ride

Decided to stick to the original plan of getting on the MTB, and went up to investigate Haro/Queenswood park. I got there and laughed my ass off!!

There were all these MASSIVE dirt jumps - it was insane!

Yeah, there's no way i'm going to ride that! hahaha..

Had a fun time riding around tho, rode a few of the smaller jumps and enjoyed some of the berms (that actually work!) Also rode along the beat at Gyro Park:

Saw a few feathered friends, and their very cute youngin's.

Various footprints... Ducks, geese, and a Nano Raptor. ;)

Really nice ride.

Tue - More 1mins Ouchies

Headed out with Emile to Sidney to do more 1min efforts. The plan was 3x3x1mins, that is, 3x1mins (2mins rest between each) and repeat that three times, with an extra 5mins between sub-sets. It's one more than the last two workouts, but bigger rests. The day was LOVELY, btw.

First one felt alright, but wasn't really feeling great... Finished the first set, and went on to the second, got through the first two, and the third felt like a pretty weak attempt, and it didn't look like i was holding very good watts at the 40sec mark, so i called it off..

Emile was doing 1min efforts too, although waiting 5mins between each. He had two left, so i rode up to where he was, and finished them with him, he was riding very strong. I guess it makes a difference getting that much more recovery between efforts. ;)

After the final one, i developed a splitting headache! Middle of my forehead..yuck. Luckily it only lasted about 10mins.. I think i might have been a bit dehydrated, i downed nearly an entire water bottle! We took a different route home, hitting a bunch of roads i haven't been on for a while, just over 2'30 ride.

Felt a lot better about my workout when i checked my numbers tho! I got a new 1min PB!!!! Up 10w(!!!), i held 540w for 1min...!!! Insane! I guess i just overdid it on the first one. HR hit 193..haven't been up there for a while i think. Pretty crazy as i wasn't quite going 100% (knowing i had plenty more to do.)

Anyway, here's what i rode:

#1: 540w
#2: 430w
#3: 403w
REST
#4: 423w
#5: 362w
#6: 412w (35 seconds)
Ouch.. Prolly a good idea to call it off...normally i'm holding 450w at that point...

Jumped on Emile's wheel for the last two:
#7: 499w (40sec)
#8: 488w (43sec)

That's a bit more like it...i dropped off tho, was feeling pretty gross. Solid number to there tho. Cadences were a bit lower this session, down in the 111rpm range for most. (Tho 117rpm for #7.)

So i ought to take a little break from these... I've done like 24 Kilo-level efforts in the last 9 days or so...i'm feeling pretty wiped by all these. After about 15mins i felt 'normal' again tho, and put in a good effort for the ride home. Here's the full ride:

 Entire workout (174 watts):
    Duration:      2:37:58
    Work:          1638 kJ
    TSS:           196.6 (intensity factor 0.869)
    Norm Power:    232
    VI:            1.33
    Distance:      72.549 km
                    Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0     954    174     watts
    Heart Rate:      71    193    157     bpm
    Cadence:         23    128    86     rpm
    Speed:           4     66.9   27.8     kph

Funny how the recovery sections kill your average speed..heh..that's about 3kph lower than i'm used to seeing!

Tomorrow i'm headed out to the BMX track with the MJ Bike Club kids, will be riding Derek's Barney bike again (need to get some pics of me on that thing!) Thursday may just be a 3hrs ride with no big efforts...unless i'm feeling like He-Man, that's the plan. Sat will be a shorter OBB ride, and Sunday i'm planning to head up to Duncan/Cobble Hill for the Island Cup #5 MTB race. If it's anything like last year, it's a brutal course (for me), as it's mostly climbing, and then a very quick descent...and back to climbing..blarg.. Haven't spent much time on the MTB tho, feels kinda strange!

A few more recent pics:

Shot from when i took Lysanne riding. Yep, that's my old RIP9 frame she's riding!

Descending the drop into the TTA.

Was out at the new Westshore OBB shop - congrats to Geoff, Dan, Chris and others!!

A ride with Chad, and yet another ride with an ex-bike! You might recall the Blue was my loaner road bike (thanks again OBB!) until my fated Noah arrived.. Chad got a wicked deal, and has been pretty happy. It matches his AviaWest colors as well. ;)

Kenyon took me riding out behind Durrance Lake a month ago, my first time up there, we found this interesting spot... My bike blends in..haha

This pic cracks me up...hahahahah

I was rolling up my winter tire (swapped my front tires, back to the summer Prowler), and felt a prick - there was this massive thorn in there! Hurray for Stans! =)

All the shots from my RideCam #29 can be found here.

And the final feature for this blog entry:

Links To Other Thinks

3 Race Weekend
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/dailynews.php?id=18934
I'm excited for this weekend! I think i might skip the Saturday road race, and focus on the TT and Crit on Sunday.

Grill Baby Grill
http://janinebandcroft.blogspot.com/2010/05/grill-baby-grill.html
Not often i find a piece discussing 'saving salmon' that i agree with, but this one hits the vital point everyone else misses: stop eating salmon. I Tweeted this as well:

If @SalmonAreSacred, why are they stolen from their homes, murdered, and their flesh consumed? Is that really 'sacred'?

In 2009 PETA rakes in $34 million, but only saves 8 animals
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/03/17/peta-rakes-in-34-million-but-only-saves-8-animals/
I hope no one ever mistakes me for a PETA supporter. This group is a fraud in the animal rights world, killing nearly every animal they 'rescued'...not to mention all their other hair-brained ideas.

Anyway...

Keep the rubber side down, fuzzy side up! =)

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Long Interval, Short Interval, 100% Either Way!

Two good training days since last i blogged. We did our 2nd 'OA TT' trial, and back out for more 1min efforts today. Let's check it out!

OA TT #2

As mentioned in my last post, we're checking out a potential TT course for peeps in Vic, since the Sidney Velo TT is no more (due to construction on the course, and being unable to find a replacement.) I was a bit choked, as i was finally starting to dial in my training to do half-decent at a non-track (velodrome) cycling discipline!

Roland had suggested this as a potential course, (we wanted something with minimal interruption, stop signs, corners, etc..) and a couple weeks ago we did our first trial with five peeps, and it went pretty well! Read the previous entry for more of a description of the course.

My first effort had me finish about 22:36 with an average wattage of 283. Improved on both last night, dropping a few seconds to 22:32, and 285w. Results from all participants here. I'm happy with that!

Since it's only one lap, there's no real natural split, but there are two corners, and they're fairly easy to spot on the wattage file, so i'll break it down thusly. First corner is about 4.9km in, second corner is about 5.5km, and the distance from there to the finish is about 3.4km (13.8km total, it actually added up!)

Effort #1, Apr 20th

Section:  #1    #2    #3    TOT

Time:     8:30  9:10  4:56  22:36

Watts:    305w  267w  274w  283w

HR:       174   182   184   180

RPM:      97    97    99    97

Spd:      34.4  36.4  41.5  36.8

Alright, so that was a windy night (headwind most of the way, huge tailwind on the way back). Second time, much less wind, but a few degrees colder.

Effort #2, May 4th

Section:  #1    #2    #3    TOT

Time:     8:24  9:01  5:08  22:32

Watts:    291w  278w  286w  285w

HR:       174   184   186   181

RPM:      99    99    102   100

Spd:      34.7  36.7  40.7  36.8

So that's interesting.. I chilled a bit on the first section, since there wasn't as much of a headwind, although i still jammed it (420-490w for 15-20sec) on the four hills (about the same last time). That gave me a bit more juice for the 2nd and 3rd parts, which were pretty smooth. Last time, i ran out of steam on the 2nd part a bit, and also faced the wind. Slower finish this week, but i put out a lot more watts and didn't have a huge tailwind..so i think i raced both pretty smart. Now to improve on this!

And speaking of improvement, Lysanne took nearly 2.5mins off her time! Guess a couple weeks of training, and riding her TT bike (instead of road bike in the drops) makes a bit of a difference. ;)

Thanks to Brian for making it out this week (just happened to run into him on the way out!) And to Emile, Jamie, Halldor and Lysanne on the first effort. Again, all results here.

Another 8x 1mins PI Session

These things don't get any easier...although this session i totally cleaned up and kicked the wattage!  Doing 4x1mins, with 2min rests, then 5min rest and repeat. Again, the last entry has my #'s from the previous go, my best one was 488w, and worst was 410w. The average was 435w. Let's see what went down today:

#1: 505w
#2: 474w
#3: 434w
#4: 415w

Pretty good! First one was actually really high! My all-time PB is 530w!! The 2nd was 14w lower than the best effort from last time! The 4th was a fair bit of a drop, although i completed it (last time, stopped a bit short on #4.) Continuing:

#5: 470w
#6: 440w
#7: 386w (ouch!)
#8: 437w

Not sure what happened on #7...lowest one ever! (Last time, lowest was 410w..) Still, the other three were big improvements. Very surprised with #5! Very happy with that. Average for this session is 445w - that's a pretty nice improvement! HR only peaked around 188bpm today..should be over 190..hmm..

Cadence nice and high for all, in the 110rpm range (first couple at 116). I did have some trouble with this in a few spots, i couldn't find a good gear, i was either over-spinning or grinding.... Well, grinding at 102rpm...this is a real reminder of 'where' my power is: at higher cadences... If i tried to do this at, say, 90rpm, it would be MISERABLE. This is exactly why i can't fair as well on the hills....cadence drops too low, and i can't tap into the power i've got.. These efforts would have kept me in the Spring Series road race, for example...but i couldn't because i was grinding at 50rpm up Snake Hill... And then my repeatability goes down dramatically as well.. I'm such a trackie..haha

One other good thing i pulled from this training session: dig deeper and keep it going! There were a few times where i looked down at my timer, and there were 10 or 20sec left, and i was FRIED. I felt like i should just stop. I did once last session with 5sec to go....but i rallied my will-power, and just kept jamming the pedals, and ignored the hurt. I was pretty happy with myself, in most cases i kept up the strong pace, and it actually began to hurt a wee bit less.....!

Ride back was good, solid effort once my legs returned to normal! Rode in along the water, thought i might catch the Russ Hayes ride as i passed downtown...i motored along until Moss St, and guessed they must be behind me, so turned around, and found them just past Cook, and rode to Richmond with them, chatting with Jamie a bit. It was a huge group, almost 40 people! Lovely evening tho, nice and sunny.

So that was a fun couple days! Rest for tomorrow, and then back to the OBB ride on Saturday (it's been a couple weeks!) And again hoping for some trail time on Sunday.

A few links in the meantime:

Neato Clicky Clicky Time

RIP9 Vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4QKXO01fvc
Hey, it's my MTB! Same color too! Find out why the RIP9 is simply the best MTB.

Ben Day's Tapeworm
http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/05/news/ben-days-unwanted-passenger_114040
This is disgusting. Vegans rarely get tapeworms, btw.

Maple Syrup Anti-Oxidants
http://www.thisdishisvegetarian.com/2010/03/0263canadian-maple-syrup-found-to.html
Kinda neat, more reasons to enjoy this sweetener. =)

Podcast: Sam Harris picks a fight with God
http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2010/02/12/sam-harris-picks-a-fight-with-god/
Love how consistently concise and clear Sam Harris is.. Talking about religion and morality, worth the listen.

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A Vegan NHL Hockey Player?

I heard of this guy, George Laraque, some time ago. Says he's vegan, but he's known as the toughest guy in the NHL (aka a fighter/enforcer).

I pretty much wrote him off, described his as just being a bully (i'm not a hockey fan), etc..

But, just a few minutes ago, i decided to listen to what he had to say:



Okay, he got me. I take back what i said. This guy seems pretty cool. Now, when he talks about veganism and animal rights, i hope he has the good sense to stay away from groups like PETA...

Now, back to me! =)

I've been quite busy, training hard! Raced a Caleb Pike last week, but was pretty poached from my training before (including sprinting on my MTB with the Kids Club for 90mins earlier in the day), so when it kicked up a bit a few laps in, i got shelled... Still, about the best i've done on that course, and i think were i feeling a bit better, i'd have been able to hang in there.

I'm also working on developing a TT for Vic, since the Sidney Velo was shut down. The loop is here, and this is the elevation profile:

We were wondering why it was so slow... It's only 13.8km, but Emile took 20:59 to complete, and my own time was 22:36..barely 36.5kph average speed - that is *slow*!

Looking at the profile it makes sense, we're climbing most of the time! There's about 120m of elevation, and it doesn't feel like it (at least, once off Metchosin Road's rollers), but yeah, it is. So it's a tough course! Just testing it for now, but get a hold of me if you're interested in being a part of this..

Also, for my effort, i averaged ~283w, which was a bit lower than i thought i would get, but then again, i punched it on the rollers, holding ~450w for 30 seconds a few times, and ~550w for 20 seconds on one of them. It was funny, Pro City Jamie started ~30sec behind me, and caught me about 4.5km in..he passed me, gained about 50m, and then was stuck there for the rest of the race. Finish time was ~22 even. So he made 30 seconds in the first 4km, and then only six after that...hehe.. =)

Intervals - PI, Power Intervals

So, my own training right now are nasty 'blood samplers' as i call them, 1min efforts, all-out... 2min rest, then repeat. After 4, i take a few extra mins rest, then repeat. Wattage looked something like:

#1: 488w
#2: 463w
#3: 420w
#4: 426w (stopped a couple seconds short)

Not too bad.. My 1min PB is 530w, and i wasn't trying to peak it, but hold a steady high-output (ie, not jam 700w for 30sec, and limp the rest). After the first couple, i was just hoping to hold ~450w. HR peaked at 191bpm. Bleh! Kept going:

#5: 417w
#6: 445w
#7: 410w
#8: 414w

Cooked! HR was only going up to around 185bpm at that point...it hurt.. Kept the cadence high too, most efforts averaging over 110rpm. Nice to get back to doing efforts in that range...

Here's the WKO+ data for the day: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgdbj3nx_40c95bz9d4

And what Garmin has to say: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/32166084

That's the main excitement for the week! Saturday night i did a short ride because during the day i was busy with:

A Vegan Bakesale!

For World Vegan Bakesale Day Victoria, Sarah Kramer helped me organize a fundraising event here for Friends of Animals, and it was a smashing success! Thanks to nearly 20 bakers, super-volunteers and OrganicAthlete Victoria members Scott and Mary, and over $700 in raffle prizes raised by OA Vic, we raised over $1,000 for FoA to print more Vegan Starter Guides (download PDF) for local distribution. It was pretty awesome, check out Sarah's blog posting, and below is a pic from volunteer Jessica:

Om nom nom... Thank you Victoria for helping out!! Craig Richey and Tom Skinner also swung by for some goodies, thanks guys, and congrats on your Blue Team fundraiser! ;)

Training this week: hopefully we'll pull off the 2nd OA-TT Trial (if not, probably more PI efforts), and definitely more PI's on Thursday. OBB ride on Saturday (i've missed two in a row! Previous week tabling for FoA and OA at the Earthwalk), and Sunday will prolly be a shorter road ride, or maybe some time in the dirt if some peeps would want to hit the trails...

In the mean-time, there are links i need to fix on this site. I might try out a new style/look...i designed this one myself, but it's incompatible with all Google doodads and gadgets...so might try something else for a bit, and see how that works...

Until then, happy riding! =)

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