Lots of snow on the trails yesterday, most of that will be gone by this afternoon, much of the trail will be so soft it will be like a horizontal hill.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Getting ready for Sunday
What an awesome week this has been. The sun is out, the weather is warm and this weekend looks great for the Epic Holiday Cross in KC.
Lots of snow on the trails yesterday, most of that will be gone by this afternoon, much of the trail will be so soft it will be like a horizontal hill.
Lots of snow on the trails yesterday, most of that will be gone by this afternoon, much of the trail will be so soft it will be like a horizontal hill.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Inside vs outside
With lower than normal temps mixed with ice, what should be an easy to get outside previous week has turned into way to much time on the rollers stuck inside. Normally it takes a good movie or football game to watch to take my attention away from the sitting stationary for two hours. If I don't get that my mind starts to focus on wanting to end my roller ride. Once that happens the ride is doomed.
What I have found interesting are the demands and outcome of a roller ride vs an outside ride.
In this graph the roller ride is the solid yellow line compared to the dotted line being a real outside ride with the same intended ride type. You can certainlly see the lack of varitaion in a roller ride.
I find that being on the rollers my bike position is more weighted towards the back for some reason and it's harder to reach tempo level or higher wattage targets on the rollers than it is when outside.
O' well, I'm sure there will be more time on the rollers as winter has yet to even start but I'll take any day outside I can get.
Next up two CX races in KC Jan 2 and Jan 9 then the countdown to 2011 CX season begins.
What I have found interesting are the demands and outcome of a roller ride vs an outside ride.
In this graph the roller ride is the solid yellow line compared to the dotted line being a real outside ride with the same intended ride type. You can certainlly see the lack of varitaion in a roller ride.
I find that being on the rollers my bike position is more weighted towards the back for some reason and it's harder to reach tempo level or higher wattage targets on the rollers than it is when outside.
O' well, I'm sure there will be more time on the rollers as winter has yet to even start but I'll take any day outside I can get.
Next up two CX races in KC Jan 2 and Jan 9 then the countdown to 2011 CX season begins.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
3 week peak plan before State (by the numbers)
Some folks are numbers people and some are not, I am a numbers person. The power tap is a numbers persons dream and has been the best cycling tool I've ever used as I keep getting more out of it the more I learn.
Last year I had a coach that basically helped me understand how to train with power, this year I went on my own for the most part using what was provided to me last year and mixed in new stuff that I researched.
With Cross Season about to come to a close in a few weeks its fun to look back at the PMC chart which shows form, fitness and fatigue results. You can clearly see in the chart below a peak in fitness right before cross season, it took a shark drop during a designed one week rest period, then slowly drops over the course of the cross season.
Key event for 2010 was the MO St CX Championship. I put a plan together to peak over a 3 week period with a focus on getting the form number as high as I could without loosing much fitness coupled with alot of rest.
For the races before this three week stretch things would look about like this on race day.
Form (Blue Line) around 9
Fitness between (Gray bars) 65 and 55 sloping downward each week
Fatigue between (Red Line) 45 and 55
For the State my numbers looked like this:
Form 14.8
Fitness 55.8
Fatigue 36.6
The plan worked, I felt great at all three of these races and of course met my goal this past Saturday.
I can definitely feel a correlation to what the numbers read and how I feel on race day. This tool is an excellent way to predict how I strong I will be on race day and helps balance everthing.
Late in the season I realized I could change the date on my computer then plug in the workouts I would do, essentially planning the future to see what these numbers would be on race day. This became an awesome technique that allowed me to plan the workouts better and change them as needed.
I'll keep looking over the numbers which will result in changes for next season. I know for sure I would like to peak the fitneess to around 85 or 90 next year.
This stuff is what makes cycling so much fun!
Last year I had a coach that basically helped me understand how to train with power, this year I went on my own for the most part using what was provided to me last year and mixed in new stuff that I researched.
With Cross Season about to come to a close in a few weeks its fun to look back at the PMC chart which shows form, fitness and fatigue results. You can clearly see in the chart below a peak in fitness right before cross season, it took a shark drop during a designed one week rest period, then slowly drops over the course of the cross season.
Key event for 2010 was the MO St CX Championship. I put a plan together to peak over a 3 week period with a focus on getting the form number as high as I could without loosing much fitness coupled with alot of rest.
For the races before this three week stretch things would look about like this on race day.
Form (Blue Line) around 9
Fitness between (Gray bars) 65 and 55 sloping downward each week
Fatigue between (Red Line) 45 and 55
For the State my numbers looked like this:
Form 14.8
Fitness 55.8
Fatigue 36.6
The plan worked, I felt great at all three of these races and of course met my goal this past Saturday.
I can definitely feel a correlation to what the numbers read and how I feel on race day. This tool is an excellent way to predict how I strong I will be on race day and helps balance everthing.
Late in the season I realized I could change the date on my computer then plug in the workouts I would do, essentially planning the future to see what these numbers would be on race day. This became an awesome technique that allowed me to plan the workouts better and change them as needed.
I'll keep looking over the numbers which will result in changes for next season. I know for sure I would like to peak the fitneess to around 85 or 90 next year.
This stuff is what makes cycling so much fun!
Sunday, December 05, 2010
MO State Championship
Good solid field of Masters seem to be the norm in the KC area, with that in mind I made the 40+ State Race a priority race looking for nothing less than the jersey. So here we are, Championship Saturday on a cold windy day in Kansas City, MO. The course was the same as this years Boss Cross 1 with a few minor changes.
I made it to the first turn 3rd wheel behind Stu and David Hejduk. After a few turns I moved around Stu to chase David who was quickly working to separate himself from the field. He kept a gap on me for the next few laps that was manageable as we separated ourselves from the rest of the race. Then I started to loose a few seconds here and there and it became evident that David was stronger than I this day growing his gap to 35 sec. The rest of the race I kept an eye on my six keeping a nice cushion just in case then finally crossed the line 2nd overall.
I made it to the first turn 3rd wheel behind Stu and David Hejduk. After a few turns I moved around Stu to chase David who was quickly working to separate himself from the field. He kept a gap on me for the next few laps that was manageable as we separated ourselves from the rest of the race. Then I started to loose a few seconds here and there and it became evident that David was stronger than I this day growing his gap to 35 sec. The rest of the race I kept an eye on my six keeping a nice cushion just in case then finally crossed the line 2nd overall.
David is from KS so I was the first MO resident to cross the line taking home the Jersey and gold medal.
Two hours later I lined up for the Mens Open. About two laps of that race went well then my legs did not have enough to hold on. I stayed in the race and crossed the line 6th out of 9.
I don't think I'll do the two races in one day thing again this late in the season and on a cold day. Next year my focus will be on the Men's open race at State. In the end I'm pleased with the weekend, goal was the jersey and that's what I got.
This Sunday is Washington CX. This one I promote with help from the crew in Washington.
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