Snowcone Training Series #2: 2/11/2012

Snowcone Training Series #2

2/11/2012

This was the second installment of this year's Snowcone Training Series. It's a criterium held on clean asphalt roads that are closed to traffic, in an office building park area. I missed the first one, and there's not many races this early in the year, so I was pretty eager to go. Leading up to the race, I felt like crap. I was just finishing up a tough training week, I had been under a lot of stress at work, and woke up with a sore throat and headache.

I drove down with a friend/teammate, Matt,(which was awesome), and we arrived in plenty of time to get dressed, get the bikes ready, and warm up. It was cold (about 38 degrees) and spitting rain. Riding around the course to warm up, I felt horrible. My head was "foggy" and my legs felt weak, but soon enough we were at the starting line, ready to go...there were 61 people in the field.

Once the race started, everything felt great. My head was clear, my legs felt nice and strong, and for some reason, the song "Feel Good, inc." by The Gorillas, was stuck in my head. Overall, the racing was smooth and fun. There was the occasional guy not holding his line through a turn, but that's pretty typical, and didn't seem to cause too many problems. Towards the end of the race, somebody took a turn too wide and clipped the concrete curb, which sent 2 guys rolling into the grass, but to my knowledge, that was the only incident. 

With about 5 laps to go, Matt and I were sitting in about the top 25% of the field, and we were both feeling pretty strong. I was starting to think that I was actually going to contest the finishing sprint, which I typically haven't done in the past. However, with 3 laps to go, I pushed down to accelerate hard on my right leg, and immediately felt a sharp pain in my lower back. Matt was beside me and asked me how I felt, so when I told him that I was hurt, he went to move to the front. At this point, my plan was simple: keep my speed high enough to not need to accelerate hard, and hang on until the finish.

On the final turn, Matt got boxed in and had nowhere to go for the sprint (a lesson that I learned last year), and I held steady on the outside for about 16th place (after reviewing the video).

This was the first chance I've had to race with Matt. He looks solid, he's strong, and he seems to have the ability to stay firm in his lines, and in the pack. This was also the first time that I recorded a race using my GoPro HD. I put some working gauges on it (using a cool program called Dashware), and put it on YouTube. Here's the link: Snowcone Training Series race #2 video

Hains Point "Slayfest" 2/7/12

Hains Point "slay fest" aka "The Noontime Peloton" is a pretty neat phenomenon. Every day around lunch time, local racers meet on a 3.2 mile loop of road that sticks out into the Potomac river to ride some laps. The groups are random, with riders ranging from pro to Cat 5. There's some pretty strong riding, powerful attacks, strung-out fields, dudes in aerobars, and chicks that ride on the front. It's a pretty eclectic scene. One side of the loop can see speed upwards of 29 mph and beyond, and the other side is usually somewhat windy. The road is also occupied by runners, speed skaters, tour buses, casual riders, and the occasional homeless person. Add to that, the fact that the police randomly choose days to target cyclists for not stopping at the stop signs, and it sounds like the worst-nightmare-of-a-group-ride that you could imagine. However, somehow, it all works. It usually goes off without a hitch, and best of all, it's always a great workout.

Today I went to Hains Point with the intention of just doing a 2x20 threshold workout. Once I realized that I was right on time for the Slayfest, I decided to abandon my own workout and ride laps with the fast guys. This is the third week that I've begun to open up my legs a little bit and push above my calculated FTP. I've been working out aerobically at an FTP of 234. Today's numbers show me that I'm progressing well, and starting to make some gains in power.

Below is a link to the ride file loaded to Garmin Connect.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/147918962

Well, February is here, and usually by this time I'd be complaining about how much training I haven't been doing. This year, however, has been awesome.
I got a new bike...actually an entirely new setup (a custom spec'd 2012 Specialized Tarmac SL4, with Mavic Cosmic Carbones)(pictured with the old stem which has been replaced with a new S-works stem)

I spent a great deal of time staying aerobic throughout November and December, and even half of January. In fact, it wasn't until after attending Hunter Allen's power clinic that I decided to start ramping up the intensity in my workouts. For the past couple weeks, I have added a sprint day to my training week, and I even threw in a day of small climb repeats, using a little course that I put together to train for the Sea Otter Classic circuit race.
The team that we started last year is going well, and a few of the dedicated members have been meeting weekly for some winter training. Hopefully once the weather warms up a bit, we'll see the rest of the crew.
So, I've got my new bike, I've been training well, the only question is whether or not it will pay off. Well, we'll see soon enough. I've registered for an early season "training" race in 2 weeks. In the last one of these series, the fields had over 70 riders each, so it should be action packed. This will also be my first opportunity to use my new GoPro HD in a race. I've been playing around with it, and using a program called "Dashware" to add custom gauges to the video.
My big goal this year is to earn enough points to upgrade from Cat4 to Cat3. To do so, I'm going to try to finish at least in the top 10 at every race. I'm looking forward to the challenge.