2016 Plans

Races are like vacations, it’s always good to have one, ideally two planned out. At least tentatively, so with that in mind this is the in pen and pencil plans…

• February 7;  The Rock Cobbler 3.0, 100m gravel grinder…sorta – registered
• February 6-14; Tour of Sufferlandria, the usual shenanigans!
• March 19 ; Redlands Strada Rossa 100km
• April 24; Belgium Waffle Ride, 135 miles and 11,000’ of gain on and off road
• May; Trainerroad 8 Days of California
• June 4; Dirty Kanza 200

This will dovetail into Becca’s plans for the year which look like this;

• April 2,  Oceanside 70.3
• July, Vineman 70.3
• October, Arizona 70.3
• November, Ironman Arizona

I am sure there are few other adventures that are off of the radar right now but that will come into focus as the year pans out.

Golden Gran Fondo (GGF) Week 3

Week 3 is in the bag and as expected it was a big one. I continued with the TrainerRoad 8 Days in California challenge completing it on Saturday. Here is how the week shook out;

Monday. 28 Miles. Princess Stage with 5 KOM including steep ascent in last stage. Short sprint in first third. Fell off the back during the middle climb. Clawed my way back to front group and finished mid bunch. Legs pooped from yesterday's triple! Added an extra 8 miles riding tag-a-long with Becca as she finished up a brick.

Tuesday. 25 Miles. Only one KOM. Several intermediate Sprints and fast flat run in to the Finish.

Wednesday. 26 miles. 3 intermediate sprints and 4 KOMs, fast tailwind finish. Easiest day so far...which is good as legs are feeling it for sure, 176 miles in last 5 days. 

Thursday. 15.6 miles. Short hard TT with extended warm up and easy cool down.

Friday. 35.1 miles. Two big climbs and lots of intermediate sprints to keep up with the GC Leaders. Mechanical at the hour mark but caught up again. New 40k PR.

Headed out to the Amgen Tour of California to hang out with the SkratchLab guys at the expo. A windy and chilly day but had lots of fun!

Saturday. 25.3 miles. 8 Days in California. Final Day. Lots of surges and sprints! Total count for the week 205.3 Miles 810 TSS.

Sunday. 47.5 miles. Got out later in the day as Becca and I were at the last day of Amgen Tour of California to hang out with the SkratchLab guys at the expo. Again lots of fun!

A mix of rolling hills, flats and climbs. Hilly and windy to start. To become a better descender I need to ride down descents so I hit one of the biggest drops around here and hung on! Fast and flat 10 miles to a long climb home. Good ride...longer than planned but oh well!

So for the week:

8 workouts, 209.11 miles in 12:21 I missed my strength work (again), which I need to do otherwise it will come back to haunt me! I am really happy with the progressive build of the mileage. I am not going overboard with it. One more build week and then a rest week.

I am at 415 bike miles for the month so I am still on track for somewhere north of a 600 mile month.

I have a FTP test tomorrow so I hope to see an uptick from my current level of 206. It’s basically the same ride as I did on Thursday and I was able to hold 218 for the first section and 225 for the second…we’ll see!

In case anyone is interested all screenshots are from SportTracks.

Golden Gran Fondo (GGF) Week 2

A full week back on the bike and the miles are accumulating quickly. This week was the start of the TrainerRoad 8 Days in California challenge so I slipped off my training in the latter days. It will finish up next Saturday and the I will just slot back into the plan. So here is how things broke down;

Monday. The Sufferfest Elements of Style, always good to work on form and develop good habits.

Tuesday. TrainerRoad Glacier. 3 sets of Anaerobic capacity intervals; 5x2-minute efforts at 130% FTP with 5-minute recoveries. 6-minute recovery valley, 5x1-minute repeats at 150% FTP with 3-minute recoveries. 6-minute recovery valley, 5x30-second bursts at 180% FTP with relatively long, 3-minute breaks between them.

Wednesday. TrainerRoad West Vidette. 45 minutes of aerobic Endurance riding ranging from 50-80% FTP. A couple of stops futzing with cleats as they slipped, they need replacing.

Thursday. South Guard. 5x12-minute sets of 30-second steps which rise by 3% until 115% FTP is reached. Then, you'll step back down via those same 3% steps until you've descended to 91% FTP. The second ascent will only take you to 106% FTP before again stepping back down to 91% FTP. Recoveries between intervals last 4 minutes each. Switched to Tri shoes and felt better, reinforces need for new cleats and/or review of road shoes. This was hard but doable. Dropped off my bike at Wins Wheels for a tune up.

Friday. Off. Like. A. Boss!

Saturday. 8 Days of California. Day 1 of 2015's 8DC is a pan flat course which includes 3 intermediate sprints on the way to a spectator-friendly set of 4 finishing circuits including 6 turns per lap and culminating in a final, all-out sprint effort. Picked my bike from Wins Wheels, shifting is so smooth now! Also fitted some new Speedplay cleats…so much better!  I changed things this time and went with their new Walkable cleat, review to follow.

 

Sunday. 8 Days of California. Day 2 of 2015's 8 Days in California is a course that rolls substantially over the first half of the course and flattens out into a sprinter-friendly finish over the latter half. This course includes 3 intermediate sprints as well as a single KOM/QOM. Once I had finished this ride I went out on the road with Becca and added another 36 miles and after that jumped on my Mountain Bike and tagged along on Becca’s brick run. It was a good cool down ride!

In contrast to the regular TR ride the 8DC rides are proving to be challenging simply due to the fact that is minimal downtime, you can see that in the images above.

So for the week:

8 workouts, 168.94 miles in 10:25 I missed my strength work, which I need to do otherwise it will come back to haunt me!

Still on track for somewhere north of a 600 mile month.

In case anyone is interested all screenshots are from SportTracks.

8 Days in Caifornia

This kinda snuck up on me but in conjunction with the timing of the Amgen Tour of California TrainerRoad is running their 8 Days in California contest, it starts Saturday May 9th.

This year's course will keep you on your toes with four sprint stages, three climbing stages and one individual time trial, but remember that this is 8DC, so there will be no easy days.

• Stage 1: Sprint Stage
• Stage 2: Sprint Stage
• Stage 3: Climbing Stage
• Stage 4: Sprint Stage
• Stage 5: Climbing Stage
• Stage 6: Individual Time Trial
• Stage 7: Climbing Stage (Queen Stage)
• Stage 8: Sprint Stage

There is plenty more info available at their webpage

This will obviously take me off my training plan some but not too much, a  couple of days are shorter than the plan and a couple are longer, I think I will net out with extra days through, which is the right way round!

8 Days in California!

Want to play but don’t have a TrainerRoad account? First to ask (leave a comment on this post) for one will get a code which will give them a free month!