Gran Prix Louisville

OK it was party time. With no UCI pts. I took a back row start on Saturday. #77 out of 95 or so. I think I was almost the last guy through the first corner. It was SLICK as snot on the course. I felt good on the course but the first 2 laps were NUTZ. I went over the bars at least 3 times. I would come around a corner to see 3-4 guys on the ground and just plow into them. It was a junk show. I moved up steadily the whole race till I ended in 42nd. I am pretty darn happy with the ride. I had good fitness and even though we race for 72 minutes I felt great. Our lap times were as fast as the winner for the 35+ and those guys are fast.
DAY 2
Much better start 42nd bib# Horner and Craig were right next to me so no excuses here. Huge wreck in the first corner!! A bunny hop and I made it through. I would say I was in the 60's at this point. I slowly moved up to 43rd and that was all I had. 42 guys were faster for sure today. I stayed upright the hole race.
The course was RAD...... Fast and Flat...... A big run-up or hill would have been nice but it was a stellar course. The field of riders was stronger than any other I have raced in. I hope to better my fitness a bit before IOWA in 4 weeks.

END of week 3 REST

Well I had high hope of an epic CX battle this weekend but a nice head cold Kicked my butt and snow came by the inches. The mix of the shotty weather(perfect for CX) but not when your sick. And just feeling like Crud messed with the racing plans. I was able to recover and do the 20 minute, 15 minute, 10 minute and 5 minute on SUNDAY on the trainer. Felt solid but tired for sure. I did have a great 20 minute effort but the legs felt pretty week. I survived the rest of the workout. Since I didn't race and took Friday/Saturday virtually off I did race simulation today on the CX bike. I did 4x11 minute race efforts. They were hard but I didn't nail it the full on. Now I rest to this weekend and the Gran Prix of CX in Louisville. With NO UCI points I might be starting pretty far back. I hope to get a decent start position and make up for it the last half of the race. Now I get to rest,, rest and rest. I feel like I have been ON for about 8 weeks so this will be nice.

week 3 ...2nd time

After a rest Monday and Tuesday I was back on Wednesday. The 2 days felt like 2 weeks. I was twitching and nervous to do hard work again. I felt like I lost a bit of the rhythm. I called a friend to do the Micro Bursts with me. 4 x10 min... Ouch... But they felt good in away. They were hard but I felt I had more gas after they were done. I did 30 more minutes of tempo on the CX bike. I also had a BRUTAL RUN "BIG HILL" I will post a pic soon...
Thursday I was scared to do the blowout ...knowing I had almost cracked 400 a few times warming up. I hit 397indoor seated.... BUT it was work this time. I held on for life. The 3 weeks of training this block is hurting the legs a bit. The 5x8min were a bit nasty and low watts. About 20 off normal. I couldn't get the Hrate up so...the legs are certainly tired. I just have to make it to the weekend and I get to rest next week for LOUISVILLE! should be rad. I am going to race one day this weekend..not sure which yet. CTL is still UNDER 90. I will have to reach a bit next cycle to get it to 95 of so before I rest for IOWA. Nervous if I don't get the workload up a bit I won't see any progress for the end of the season. I really want to see some Peak watts heading to Natz. In the past the closer I get to 100 CTL the better my 20 minute and hour of power. I also have had all my best 5 minutes near 90+ so I will have to be sure to ramp the 3 weeks after KY. I am sure I am in for some big HURT.

Weekend Double MT CX races

Ok the week was hard. 2 races over the weekend were LOOMING.
Vo2 on Wednesday and 3x20's Thursday and try to race Saturday & Sunday. Well I had stellar legs even though I thought I would be BLOWN. The first few LAPS of the race...HURT..burned..but after 15 minutes I found I recovered from the MEGA dig on the first lap and I was just cruising. I could just turn the gear. I was faster the last half of the race. I certainly didn't have 100% but I still felt solid for the HOUR. I was able to race each lap hard.. Even on Sunday I was able to stay on top of the gear for most of the race. I have never won CX races so it was pretty cool to win both days. The field had about 15 A racers each day so it was a bit small.. But it was great to be able to get out and race. We raced at 6500ft on Saturday and snow covered Mtns. were the back drop... Pretty COOL.

The next few weekends will be HUGE tests. Racing in Salt Lake next week will no doubt be humbling. The top guys there are FAST. The following week at the Gran Prix I hope to crack into the TOP 20.. That will take a MEGA day and some real fitness.

Now back to training. I have one more solid week and then I get to rest for Louisville.
The big goal is IOWA "Jingle CX" & Masters Natz so I need to keep the head down and keep killing it.

Doing the HomeWork

I have been in school(CX) now for almost 8 weeks. I have repeated 8 weeks or so of the plan and I am currently putting out watts that I have never had during CX season. My legs are tired...But I continue to have great numbers. I suffer through most of the workouts and want to quit but I made a promise to myself to get all the work done. Today was 3x20's After the 8x5's yesterday on the CX bike and pretty low watts I wanted to bail on todays ride. I jumped on the trainer this morning and did the 4x1 high cadence to warm up. They felt awful at first. By the last 1 I starting to feel pretty good. So i started the 20 minute a bit Low and ramped. I hit 5.25 watts to KILO indoor with pretty tired legs. I barely cracked 170 Hrate so I had a bit more in the tank but I had 2 more efforts and didn't want to sell the farm today. I think i could have hit 5.4-5.5 if I was outdoor or really got after it today. The other 2 efforts were lower but I still had a few moments of sunshine. The last effort I started well below 300( I was BLOWN) and ramped to 350 for the last 5 minutes. I was done before that effort started, but made myself get it done. I race a double this weekend in MT. Curious to see how I feel. I think Saturday is at 7000 ft. I am sure that will make for some BIG hurt. So basically I have completed the first 2 cycles and am hitting the best numbers I have ever had for CX. For those of you out there suffering I promise you are going to see some results. I am SHOCKED at what I am seeing. My goal was 5.5 for 20 minutes before Natz.. I now want a 20 minute PR in MID November and a 5 MINUTE-PR also. Next week I am going to throw down on a 20 minute to see where I am at.

Finish of week 1 for the 2nd time SNOW

SNOW!!!4+inches

Today went well for wanting to take the day off

Sunday

2x25 on the trainer. 75 Minutes of CX Practice.. and a Solid 30+ minute RUN with 10 hard Hills.

My peak 25 minute was 5 watt to kilo and didn't feel epic. So after a hard week and this my 3rd day on I thought I wouldn't have any gas. Ctl is 88 so after this week it will crack 90- for sure. Just the slight increase in load and I have seen MEGA improvement in watts. I am guessing if I had to test my 20 minute I could pop out close to 5.3-4 to kilo and over 6.2 for 5 minute. That is reasonably high for me during CX. I still have tons of time to train so I am starting to feel pretty good about the work I have in...and the work still to be done. No doubt I couldn't have done close to this amount of work 5 weeks ago and still be hitting stellar numbers.

So here is a QUICK review JUST keeping myself honest

8/20/2007-9/9 started 1st draft of plan & DID basically weeks 1-3 Best 20 minute 4.5 and 5 minute 5.6

9/10/2007-9/23 Started with Week 1& 2 again Best 20 minute 5.2 and 5 minute 6

vegas cx 32nd place..Great ride for me

9/24-10/7 Rest week in vegas and start of Week one again. 20 minute 5.1 and 5 minute was 6.1 Just of note( I did one hour of tempo at 4.7 so better than my 20 minute Sept. 1st)

Week 5 back to WEEK 1

Like all things......... life happens. OK here is the plan. Re-Start the plan Week 1-12( Nats). I completed Week (1-3) did VEGAS CX during my rest week and now Back at it from the start. I need the VOLUME of week 1-3 during the Month of October to get my CTL over 90 and hopefully to 100. I completed 3 weeks straight before I started the Plan so I had almost 6 weeks ON before Vegas. For those of you good at Math you will find it is only 11 weeks till natz. My goal is to shorten the taper a bit after thanksgiving. The other thought is that LIFE will happen in the next 12 weeks and force a week off for injury or illness. So I should be able to do 12 weeks in 11 weeks. In total I will have 15 weeks of training in for CX this year.
So How did WEEK one the 2nd TIME go. WELL I made it hard. Things went pretty stellar. I felt like I had bad legs all week but each time I trained I had great NUMBERS. Saturday took the CAKE.. It snowed so I was INDOOR. I got in 30+ minutes of threshold(2x5 and 2x10) and a BLOW out of 375 on the trainer seated. Not Bad. I was able to do a STRAIGHT Hour of tempo at 305.....with Bursts to 420-450 for 20 seconds every 2 minutes.

After a WEEK off

Week off for interbike
didn't feel like rest. NO sleep!! Hunter and I played craps till 4am. Probably stood for 12-14 hours most days. Craps, Work, Craps. I think I left with 1k in my pocket. I did get to gamble for 2hours before the CX race and 6 hours AFTER. I won about $600 that night so I took home more than Trebon and I was 3-4 minute back. After the EPIC drive home I got in 3x20's on the trainer SUNDAY. Watts were pretty darn good. I did one at threshold, the next with stomps every 2 minutes and the last at LOW cadence. All 3 were SOLID but not 100% CTL has dropped to 83. So I have some work to do to get it back up for October and November. I am really going to kill it till T-day in IOWA. I will rest a bit for LOUISVILLE but not to much. I am certain the plan is already working. I have one of the highest 5 minutes and a solid 20 minute already. Much higher than any other year for CX. My peak CTL most years is like 70 for CX I really want to get over 100 and see if it translates in to a few good races. I hope nats is SLOW and hard.