Friday, June 29, 2012

June 2012

This month featured a lot of racing. Despite this, my overall volume remained consistent with previous months (see below).The month included the following races:
  • Wednesday Night Series
    • Mercx-style 16km ITT - finished a respectable 8th in Category A field containing some very good racers.
    • 2-up Sprints - somewhat reeling from Banff, and largely due to disastrous sense of timing and focus, the evening only salvaged by a decent post-race ride with Mike and Isaac B.
    • Giro-style RR - 32.4 kms, 4 category 4 climbs, 600m of climbing - 'nuff said! Not my favorite race, but can't argue with the training benefit of hanging on as long as I can to the Evan Bayer train up 5-10% loong climbs...
  • Underwear Affair 10k Run - Official time 41:42.4. Good enough for 8th across the line.
  • ABA
    • Banff Bike Fest - Great prep work leading up to the event, solid result in the prologue, weak ITT, and abundance of power in the crit, despite the unfortunate involvement in 2 crashes.
    • Devon GP - A week after Banff, and just days after discovering I had been upgraded to cat 4, my form felt great and placed 5th and 4th on consecutive days.
Next month, there will only be one weekend of ABA races, the RMCC Road Rage SR, July 14-15 in Canmore. It features a 5km prologue along the ski-roller path (think hilly bike path), a downtown crit, and a road race.I'll train through these races in order to attempt a second peak during the Alberta Cycling Super Week in August.

Stats:
  • Run: 10 runs, 80 kms, 6:50 hrs (most volume of runs recorded in garmin connect over the last 13 months)
  • Bike: 34 rides, 982 kms (+1 trainer ride), 39:40 hrs

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Devon Grand Prix

Saturday, June 23rd - Provincial Criterium

After a weak performance in this past Wednesday's sprint contest, I was re-evaluating my rider profile.
Nonetheless, the weekend free'd up, and Mike and I headed up to Devon, Alberta (near Edmonton) for a a couple races in our new respective categories.

With little expectations, other than as Mike put it, "don't embarrass myself," we were quite cool and relaxed as we prepared for the races. I would also be the lone Speed Theorist in cat 4 on this day.

Cat 3 - pre-race
The cat 5's went out first, and Peter and Alan rocked it, the former getting the silver medal!
It was quite hot and nary a cloud in the sky as I rolled up to the start line. This was a points race, in that were to ride 25 laps in cat 4, with every 5th lap being a "prime" lap, or intermediate sprint lap.
First one across gets 5 pts, second gets 3, third gets 2 and 4th and 5th get 1 each. For the final lap, the points and spread are doubled, so first is 10 pts, etc.

I knew of a couple guys in the group that were pretty fast, and I figured everyone would go for the very first prime, so I deliberately left that one alone. Sure enough I end up at the back for that 100m, but then everyone was gassed so I moved back up near the front.
The next two I made sure to get either 4th or 5th. Would've like more, trust me, but those top 3 guys were really quick so I was really just sprinting for the single points, hoping that might pay off in the end.
On the final lap, I made my way up nicely and ended up 5th in the final sprint. With my prime points, I ended up in 5th overall too!
Marc with silver medal and the cupcake!
Quite pleased with that effort as I was able to hang on even get some decent upgrade points in my first cat 4 race!
Oh, and I had a blast. That format made it so exciting to race in. Never any real slowing of the pace, at least not for very long. After each sprint, there would be attacks too by the guys that didn't contest the sprints. I even did one!

The cat 3's ripped it up superbly. Waldhuber, Marc Enter and Dave Holmes all executed perfect team strategies, and came just 2 points short of the gold medal for Marc (see finish video)!

Sunday, June 24th - 97km Road Race

Feeling good after the crit, but a bit nervous about a supposed "selective" hill on this long road race.
Again, the sun was out and it was warming up, so would I have enough fluids?
I brought 2 bottles of mix, 2 gels, and ate a honey stinger waffle at the start line. Ironically, I would later get stung by a wasp or something, 20k from the finish!

The cat 4 course featured an out and back, with a deep valley about 30km in.
Going out, it was all smiles and laughs in the peloton. An ERTC rider took off very early, and the other teams were content to leave him out there to cook. Being the only ST again, I sure as heck wasn't going to sacrifice myself to bring him in.

At the valley, we descended quickly and emerged in one piece, and it remained fairly calm for the remainder of the first half and back to the valley, as the cross winds were starting to pick up.

Down into the valley on the return and back up, it was yours truly leading up the steep bank to the top.
Unfortunately, the top was not really the top... it was also the beginning of a looong stretch of road that kept inclining. And that's when ERTC's teammate decided to try and bridge up as we could now see the runaway.
Honey Stinger! Pulled 
this baby out of my sternum 
Sunday evening!
That caused a spring in the peloton, and I soon found myself, head down, last bike in a group of 3, 2 bike lengths ahead of them to another group... I dug and dug not only hang on, but try to bridge to the group(s) ahead. Finally near the top I slowed again, and a selection of 10 persisted, including me!

The slowing didn't last long, as attack after attack occured. First RMCC, then PRW, then ERTC. Rinse repeat.
I rode anywhere from 1st to 4th wheel for much of it, covering many of the attacks myself, and letting a few go through, latching on to the tail of the group then moving back to the front.
After what seemed like a dozen or so of these assaults, we settled into the headwind at a leisurely sunday pace. A few castaways even reattached to us, such that we were almost completely intact for the finish.

On the final turn, we passed the 1000m sign. I'm sitting in the 2nd row, riding 3 abreast. ERTC in front of me is looking frisky... Juventus star Burtnik next to me is too.
800m and bang! Off they go... seems too far, into a headwind... PRW Dave (giant of a man) comes plowing to the left of me, bumping me a couple times (good guy though, worked his ass off in this race!). The contact sets me back just a smidgen, and I've now lost contact with the wheel in front of me. Craaap... still, it's a long ways to go. I go to the suitcase of pain or whatever, again. Hard dig and catch up to guys. Then pass them. I knew they went too soon. 100m to go and I give one more kick.

Crossed the line and don't see too many guys in front of me, so I'm quite pleased. Ended up coming in 4th, so not only do I get another good chunk of upgrade points, but I get a whopping $40 prize!


Friday, June 15, 2012

Banff Bike Fest 2012

Surprise Corner Prologue - Thursday, June 14th


Described this one before, but essentially a 1.5km time trial, featuring 61m of climbing, peaking at 13% near the finish.

As usual, it was raining that afternoon, although much less than the years past. In fact, during our warmup and race, it was actually dry and even sunny!

Drove out to Banff with teammates Peter Regier and Steve Pickett, and after getting checked in and a light feeding (1/4 of a Tuna sub), we warmed up.
Pre-rode the race course, and maybe it's because I wasn't warmed up yet, but it felt painful going up it. Spun for a bit on the trainer right before in order to get the legs ready with some high cadence.

Then off we went. First sign of trouble was that I've come to realize that my Fulcrum race wheels, or rather the cassette on them, is not the same width as my commuting wheels. See my Velocity RR report for more details, and I never really tuned it since. Noticed a couple of "sticky" gears during the warmup ride, but decided it was better to leave it somewhat off, then risk making it worse right before the race.

2nd sign of trouble was the weigh in. Now, I have no delusions about the fact that I am at a competitive disadvantage on races involving elevation increases, due to my aluminum 58" frame and mid-range componentry, but it's never fun to see that 8.2kg on the scale (minimum weight allowance is 6.7kg, and there are plenty of bikes that are under that weight and forced to add things to make the minimum.)  Add that to my weight, which is probably 10kg more than the guys like Mike W and Darryl that I train with, and I can be assured I'm going to need a helluva lot more watts to get up those climbs.

Nonetheless, I had an open mind going into the race, as I do with all of them. I saw the field size was pretty small at 22 (small for an ABA race, but more than each of the last two years.) RMCC had 5 or 6 guys representing, which is always worrisome because these are guys that live in that high altitude (Canmore), are often involved in a winter sport at a very competitive level (biathlon, nordic skiing), and can rip it up those climbs.

My training for this event consisted of 2 parts. The first is 100% thanks to WKO+ software, in that it has helped me define my power profile, and allow me to measure my 1 min and 5 min max power efforts throughout my training. In fact, I can see my max power for ANY duration, and work on improving that.
Much of my winter training centered around the 5min max.

The 2nd part of my preparation was in the past week and a half, I've reduced my volume, and added some high intensity, power climb workouts. For that, I will thank Strava! There are now about a dozen segments in South Calgary with which I can explode on, test different pacing strategies, etc.
Managed to get 3 KOMs back in the 2 or 3 workouts leading up to the prologue, which also didn't hurt building up some confidence!

Anyway, the race... 30 second start intervals meant there was little chance of getting caught, or catching anyone else, on such a short distance, which means you really just have to do your own race.
I found a garmin report from D. Ashley Myers online from last year, and unlike my previous strategy of conserving some energy during the first 600m false flat, he hammered it!
So I was going to try this. I set out really fast; averaged about 42 kmph until just after the first turn. Quarq crapped out for some reason, but it would show a strong push at first, followed by a slight recovery where the road dips down right before the turn. Then wall. 2nd half average speed was ~20, with a minimum in the middle around 14! I felt like I was going to stall at that point, shifting down furiously (luckily no derailleur problems). Hit the last part of the climb and saw my clock at 2:00. Could it be? That re-energized me, and I turned myself inside out to the finish, heart and legs about to explode! Crossed the finish line and my clock said 2:50-something. Strava and the ABA clock gave me 3:00 and 3:01.66 respectively.

I was quite pleased with the clock, despite feeling like I totally bonked on the steepest part of the climb. My time was 40 seconds faster than last year! Some of that was undoubtedly a tail wind on the first part. Also, I went with my aero helmet this year for the first time.
Went down to await the results... couldn't believe it.. 3rd! Podium! Upgrade points! In fact, that gave me 12 pts, which coincidentally is what I needed to upgrade to cat 4! Wow, finally.
Amusingly, Steve finished 4th and Peter 5th, so we all came away with some precious ABA points!
Will continue to race cat 5 for this event, but with no pressure for points.

[EDIT] Due to some technical glitch the rightful owner of 3rd place was categorized as cat 4. Bumped me down to 4th so still have a bit of work to do! [/EDIT]

You can see where I rank with other riders of past and present:

Banff Bike Fest - ITT - Saturday, June 16th

Pre-rode the course the night before. I was feeling pretty good about it. Rode the hills pretty easy felt good on the Orbea. Looked at some past year's results, and I figured in order to get top 8 (and thus get my
precious upgrade points) I'd need a sub-33 minute ride, and having speed at 39-40 kmph would ensure top 5.

After a 4th consecutive restless sleep, awoke bright and early Saturday morning (although not as early as the day-trip folks!) 8:08:00 start time. Teammate (and office neighbour) Rob Wooley was to be my 30' man, but was a no-show.
Warmed up on the trainer for about 30 minutes, then borrowed some sweet Reynolds wheels from Trev exactly 5 minutes before the race start, and headed over to the start line.

At the gun, I realized I'd forgotten to down-shift and was stuck a huge gear. I burned a match right out the gate trying to get up to speed quickly. I think I topped out at 1100 Watts!
Nice tailwind heading out of Banff, but I went out too hard.
Got to the gate (2km) and my average watts were still over 400!
Dialed it down a bit, but I still really hurt by the time I reached that first big climb.
Saw my 1:00 man from RMCC up the road and closing in quickly. He managed to hold me off until the last 4 kms though, as I flip-flopped a bit with the climbs up to Minnewanka.

On the descent, the headwinds were gusty in places, and I had a few moments where I was blown sideways and focused to stay upright.
Past RMCC guy at the gates on the way back into Banff, and kept looking at my speedometer. 38.7, 38.8, 38.9... Clawing my speed up in the last couple of flat kms.

Flew through the finish line and was content with a time of 32:28.
Initial results came up and had me at 11th place, but that has since been updated to 8th. A few guys got penalties for late starts.

Crit next! If the results hold up and I get my last 2 damn points, I'm going to play the teammate and bust it at the front, even leadout. Try to get guys like Peter and Steve some more points.
Maybe go for the prime.

Here is a quick comparison of my performance on the ITT in the past 3 years:

201020112012
Official Time34:1234:5532:28
Avg Speed36.836.339.0
Avg HR-174172
Avg Power-257283
Weight(kg)-8476.6
W/Kg-3.063.69
Result10/3628/439/42


Criterium - Saturday, June 16th

WTF... no way I would have predicted it to go down this way.
First off, the course was totally different than the past two years, no longer including the 180 degree hairpin turn. But it was very windy still (see ITT report above), which would hopefully cause some havoc on the pack.

After an ample warmup, Speed Theory lined up nicely in the first 2 rows. Off we went, sitting close and together for the first couple of laps, then, crash, right in front of me. I brake to avoid going over, someone clips my back tire, more skids, then more crashes. Carbon crunching and moans behind me. Sensing blood, the front accellerated. I dodged and weaved to stay in contact. Thankfully, there were still around 30 guys left in front, although various in packs of 5-8. I spent the next 10 minutes or so moving up about 5 spots each lap. Bridging groups ahead of me, steadily progressing.
About the halfway mark I could see only a handful of guys between me and the lead motorcycle... finally!
By now, we had lapped many guys, and the side of the road looked like a charity ride, with folks nonchalantly chattin away, 2 or 3 abreast.
At this point, I was sitting very comfortably in about 4th or 5th wheel. Recovering nicely, and thinking to myself I really have a chance for glory today.
Great shot by Perdomo!
A few laps later, on one of the tighter turns, some of those lapped guys were a little encroaching in the road. The guy in front of me made a dramatic evasive maneuver which forced me to slam on my brakes mid turn. I saw the crash pad on the fence and ensured that when I slammed into it that I stayed upright, even clipped in still. Nonetheless, I went from 40 to 0 nearly instantaneously, and the 4 guys in front of me didn't. By the time I rounded the corner they were pretty much out of sight.
I did spot an RMCC guy (Murray Oshanyk) and we took turns pulling for a few laps, until I spotted Steve P and another ST, Chuck dangling up ahead. I upped the pace and told them to hang on.
With 2 or 3 laps to go, I kept the steam up strong. Going into the final lap, RMCC guy attacked with 2 corners to go, but Steve vaulted past him to take the coveted 8th spot. I finished just behind RMCC in 10th.
The results website has been rather flakey, so I can't be certain of any of my placings from yesterday.
To make matters worse, I forgot to start my garmin for the Crit, so no power data to work with!


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

WNS - 16km Mercx TT

Man vs. Road
Tonight was a 16km time trial, near Cochrane. Except this week, no time trial bike, no aero helmet, no disk wheels, shoe covers. Mercx-style, baby!

Here is a link to the race deets.

As you can see from the photo on the left, I would have a rocky start. After a dismal day including thunderstorm warning in Cochrane, with large hail, it cleared up mostly right on time. After an adequate warmup, I went to roll out to the start line, going about 0.5 km/hr. Not sure if it was congested, or gusty, but all of a sudden I tipped right over to my left side, and sure enough, as tough as those pedals are to clip in, they are equally hard to clip out of. BAM.
Oh, now get back on and roll to the start line!

Course starts with about 8km of pure, unadulterated, unrelenting headwind (26kmph with stronger gusts). Blood was dripping from my finger too, I must have cut it going down and the pressure on the handle bar was making it come out hard.

Passed Mark, my 1 min man about 4k in, and was gaining time on Walter, my 30 sec man, steadily.
Mike, 30 sec behind me, had not yet caught me. I looked back and saw someone closing in just before the turn. Then I was suprised to find out it was Karel B, not Mike. He was 1 min behind Mike!

Made the turn, and finally some relief. Downhills, great tailwinds. I saw Mike right before the turn, and managed to build a bit on my gap during the descents. I knew the final 500m contained a pretty serious climb though, so I just wanted to hold him off till then.
No sooner had I caught Walter but Mike caught me. I managed to stick pretty close to Mike as we crossed the line.

Looking at unofficial results on Strava, Karel and Isaac both schooled me, and it sounded like my Velocity pal Evan Bayer made them look like pylons!

I'd blame the leg scrape, but the fact that I held Mike to just over 30s is not too bad.

Overall I felt pretty good at the start, and that long straight, slightly rising with some rollers and nasty headwind really felt painful.

Results are here.


Saturday, June 2, 2012

Underwear Affair 10k Run

Team Bunstock
Wow, 3rd post in about 3 days! 2 races plus month end, within days of each other!

So, the ante was set, the chips were in, and now the deal.
The Underwear Affair, 10k run, 5k walk, in support of cancers below the waist. Historically features some crazy costumes and general merriness.
Of course, while running and raising money for charity is all well and good, it wouldn't be complete without a little competition.
A gentleman at my work, Dustin, was also doing this event. His fitness background currently involves crossfit, and somehow it became a cyclist vs. crossfit thing. The loser was to pay $50 to the winner's charity page for this event, as well as treat said winner to a beer after the race.

While I was extremely confident (maybe a bit cocky?) leading up to the race, I had a moment of self-doubt on Thursday, when, after a laboured and slow run at lunch, I realized it had been 2 weeks since my previous run, and only the 3rd run all month. All my efforts have been put into cycling miles, so it's not like I was fresh either!
In fact, following my race on Wednesday, I put in 5.5 hours of cardio on Thursday and Friday. Much of it was at recovery pace mind you, but when I awoke this morning, I sure didn't feel recovered.

So, we mustered at Max Bell arena, and after a day filled with clouds and at times heavy rain, we pleasantly encountered a gorgeous afternoon! So instead of staying inside and maybe hydrating or resting we all stood outside in the sun, basking!
I think we were out there for nearly an hour and half before we corralled back inside for the start.
Yes, bizarrely, the start/finish line for the race was actually inside the arena. Damn, that is gonna f*** up my garmin is the first thing I thought.

Sure enough it did. No matter, we all gathered right close to the front for the start, and Melissa tunnelled her way through the crowd immediately. Darryl and I did our best to side step the masses, and after the first km it thinned out enough on the pathway toward the zoo that you could easily run at your own pace.

I took it conservatively for the first half, ready to pounce if Dustin caught up and passed me. I was sticking to my target average pace of 4:30s comfortably. (the previous Thursday I averaged nearly 5:00 kms, so I didn't want to go out too hard today). So funny, seeing the guys at the 2km mark stopping and gasping. Dude, you really thought you could sprint a 10k race?!

There was a decent headwind going out and I felt I could really turn it up on the return, so after the turnaround and dialed it up to ~4:00 kms. Saw Dustin way behind, knew Darryl was in the top 5 and I wasn't terribly far behind. Started passing more guys like they were going backward. Amazing what a difference that 30sec pace change makes!
At the end of the zoo, I caught a guy with a fake ass on his shorts and a name tag like pedro or something. He was running pretty good and him and I took turns running in front. We approached the overpass on Deerfoot and saw a couple guys up ahead, looking pained. Told ourselves we'd reel them in. Sure enough, as the elevation dialed up, these guys collapsed.
Pedro passed me early on the final climb and it took a lot just to keep him within 10 feet. Halfway up a camera man ran down and followed us for about 50m. Nearing the top of the climb, I caught Pedro and blasted past him. I thought the finish was right there, but turns out we had to run all the way around Max Bell. Legs were fried and screaming but I was NOT going to let Pedro pass me at the end...

Held him off and nearly took out some girl at the finish line (walker?)

Strava time says 41:29. Garmin says 41:15. It also missed the first 400m, so I don't know.
Results posted at the arena had me at 14th place, but it also showed 3 girls beating me and I know for a fact there were none ahead running, because I passed the 2 girls that got trophies for 1st and 2nd.
So, I'd like to think I came in 10th or 11th... not bad, there were something like 900 people registered, half of which were just walking the 5k.
I guess they'll post the official results soon, but I have my doubts about the accuracy. Weird since they used a chip system.

Oh well, still had a blast and was pretty impressed with my run despite my lack of preparation for this race!

[EDIT] Official Results seem to be a bit of a problem for this event. They do finally have them posted, but there is something very wrong between chip start time and weird finish times, as well as a couple of women injected to 1st and 2nd place that shouldn't be there.

I took those 2 outliers out, grabbed the top 20 men and women and sorted by finish (gun) time, which looks ok for that sample, and here is how that top 20 looks (probably can subtract 3 minutes from the actual times posted though):
  1. Steven, Griffith-Coc    37:48.60
  2. Jason, Dyck 41:08.00
  3. Alex, Harmer    41:10.30
  4. Darryl, Penner  41:41.50
  5. Greg, Medwid    41:54.80
  6. Brad, Bevill    44:05.30
  7. Mark, Staples   44:34.20
  8. Reinier, Paauwe 44:46.00
  9. Terry, Arsenault    44:58.30
  10. Patrick, Zeiler 45:10.90
  11. Shay, Dodds 45:18.10
  12. Scott, Rose 45:33.10
  13. Andrea, Rice    45:57.50
  14. Henrik, Pedersen    46:14.80
  15. Peter, Walls    46:19.90
  16. Melissa, Currie 46:23.30
  17. Adelino, Tanedo 47:15.70
  18. Clayten, Wenaas 47:16.60
  19. chad, bailey    47:22.20
  20. Kevin, Murphy   47:35.60
[/EDIT]




Friday, June 1, 2012

May 2012

This month began with a business trip to Seattle, where I got in many hours of hill walking (from hotel to office/back), my first ever spin class in the hotel, and became reacquainted with Strava by a cycling colleague of mine.

For anyone that doesn't know about Strava yet, you will soon. This is quickly becoming the facebook for cyclists & runners. I reviewed this site about a year and a half ago, right before switching from MapMyRide to Garmin Connect, but found the site to be underdeveloped and the "upgrade" features didn't really entice me either; features I found for free on other sites.
Then again I looked at it last fall. I noticed they had this feature called segments, and a leaderboard on those segments, but it didn't appear there was any usage happening in Canada, and I couldn't really tell how those segments were created (or did they pre-exist?)
Then in Seattle my colleague showed me his recent ride, and how he achieved 4th overall on a particular hill during his commute to work. We did a quick scan of Calgary, and found about 3 or 4 in the city, with a couple more just on the outskirts. Ok, now I could see some value in it.

I went home and immediately uploaded my garmin's previous month data to it. Still not much doing, except that I "followed" my friend from Seattle, and everytime he logged a ride, it would appear on my dashboard. Ok, that's pretty cool too. Compared with Garmin Connect's terrible Explore feature, where you have to know the exact username and location within a certain range in order to find their workouts, this was way more usable.

There still weren't many segments created, and certainly none by any of my various commutes. So I began creating them. And I invited my riding friends. Then my work friends. They in turn invited other friends.
You can comment on other people's rides (or runs). It tracks your personal best times in running distances and riding segments. Segments are merely sections of road that you can isolate on your map, and whenever anyone rides that exact (or nearly exact) route, they essentially take part in that segment. Their name goes on the leaderboard for that segment.
If you have the fastest time, you are crowned the King of the Mountain (KOM)! There is no greater honour!

Now, everytime we ride to work, on any route, we are thinking about these segments. They are often hills, or long sections of contiguous road, and at times it's made it difficult to stick to recovery pace when your competitive juices are flowing!

Nonetheless, I think it's a brilliant idea. Now you don't need a multi-thousand dollar bike, spandex body suit,  racing license, collarbone-cracking-cat-5 mass start road race pileups to get your racing fix on!
You don't need to wait 9 months, drive to Edmonton, race for an hour, drive back, wait another month or two.
Find a segment near you and hammer it!!
I've personally witnessed 2 of my friends mention that they now are thinking about buying faster bikes so they can go for those KOMs, and that they are learning to appreciate how fast some of us can really hit those hills!

Anyway, enough about Strava. Here is a link to my page, follow me if you don't already.

After Seattle, I was home for one night, then Mike W and I drove up to Edmonton for Velocity.
Needless to say, I was rather disappointed with my results despite feeling that my fitness has vastly improved. I also attended all but one of the Wednesday Night Series races.

Suffered some sort of minor injury during the road race 2 weeks ago and have resorted to endurance and occasional tempo rides for about a week after, concluding with the 2-man TTT this week.
Gladly, I'm feeling better, even managed to move the chains on my 1-min max power to 593 last night on the ride home, taking the Cranston hill KOM! Next week I'll resume working on my 10-20 second sprints as I start reducing volume before Banff Bike Fest.

Here are my May stats:
  • Run: 3 runs, 23 kms, 2h... weaksauce!
  • Bike: 39 rides, 1,250 kms, 44h, 7,975 m elevation.
Other notables:
  • Achieved 3 of my 4 pre-season targets (CP1 > 7.7, CP5 >4, FTP > 275W) - CP means critical power, at the number of minutes post-pended to it, so CP5 means the maximum amount of effort you can perform in 5 minutes, measured in watts/kilograms. FTP is Functional Threshold Power, which is essentially CP60, and often used by endurance athletes as a benchmark. In this case I targeted a specific value as I was not interested in losing weight to achieve that value.
  • Only one remaining since December is to break the 1200W marker. I have come close, and I'm confident that I can hit that with a bit more specific training this summer.
  • Other goals that I've added unofficially mid-season are a) Improve my 10 and 20 second power such that my fatigue profile is less steep, and b) improve my zone 4 to zone 5 power - I seem to do really well if I can sprint out of zone 3 or below, but have a hard time going from 500W to 1000W. I haven't really quantified these goals for this year, but I will for sure for next season, I just know I need to improve in those areas (as well as the existing areas.)

Next up, Underwear Affair 10k running race tomorrow! Sure it's a charity run, but in this case, there's pride, dollars, and pride on the line...