Return from training hiatus + VCU/UVA Race Weekend Preview

I'm not positive if it's the most miles I've logged in a week since this past summer, which is pretty embarrassing if it is, but this week was a pretty decent week for me training wise. Monday I continued my binge eating without repercussions mentality as I readjusted to my school schedule of not having classes (man do I love senior year). Tuesday I had a gorgeous ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway beginning and ending at Mill Mountain just outside Roanoke.

Wednesday marked the return of Blacksburg Wednesday Worlds, a weekly race ride put on by most of the locals that includes a pre-determined route and a group of B's who are chased by A riders with a slight time advantage, needless to say we don't last very long. The ride was very difficult for me because it's much different than most race scenarios where we're riding 40 deep and everyone just kinda sits there. This ride is much different with a blistering fast pace, rotating pacelines, and open roads at high speed which somewhat scares me. The ride ended with a 3-mile climb of Harding Ave., a pretty narly climb here in town that the man, Lance Armstrong himself, averaged some ridiculous pace up like 15 or 17 MPH, or something ridiculous. The power file for the Wednesday Worlds is below:

Power Data from Wednesday Worlds.

Today I only managed to get out for a short ride at the end of the day and ran out of sunlight towards the end but still managed to get about 15 miles in or so. I enjoy being out on the bike especially on a day like today, even for an hour it's great to simply get away from it all. Power from today below and the details from on Garmin Connect Here.

Power Data from tonights ride.

My Thursday night ride made, just a quick loop around Blacksburg.

Tomorrow the team leaves for a race weekend hosted by both UVA and VCU. The race will be in Richmond on Saturday and Sunday, both races being criteriums with a slight change in course. One goal for me this season is to upgrade from a Category 5 to a Cat. 4, which can be accomplished by completing 10 mass start races (with a minimum start field...details...details). This weekends races will put me at 7 races for the season, only three short of the ten I need and may allow me to race up for the last race weekend of the season.

I've embedded two videos from previous race weekends which Nick Shoemaker has put together.

VT Cycling Presents: NC State 2010 from nick shoemaker on Vimeo.

VT Cycling Presents: Wake Forest 2010 from nick shoemaker on Vimeo.

The race flyer can be found here, and below the course preview for both crits.

Stoked for crits. this weekend!

Few small other notes:

T-minus 9 days until Smithfield triathlon, Oh Boy! (Be expecting a sweet pic. of my outfit and transition practice soon)

Return to Hot Yoga tomorrow!

Thats all for now more to come post weekend, hopefully sooner than the W&M-sketchy-sketchy-crashfest post which took me nealry 2 weeks to right, better late than never though.

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Blue Ridge Parkway training ride

Tuesday morning after my team meeting I headed north on I-81 to complete some mandatory lab work for my new job which begins June 14th. To put it politely, I peed in a cup, but with the lab work taking all of 5 minutes to complete I found myself in Roanoke and a perfect opportunity to get an afternoon ride in. Mill Mountain looms above Roanoke with a towering star that serves as a bright red beacon at night. I drove to the top of Mill Mountain where there's a zoo and park as well as an access road to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I asked the local park staff for recommendations on which way to go and any construction concerns to be aware of, they suggested a common ride that I decided to take advantage of riding north on the parkway and taking 24 back. The short 3-mile access road to the parkway has an awesome decent at the beginning and then a nice little climb before you hit the parkway.

Following the advice of the park employee I headed north on the parkway for a soon to be determined distance based on how I was feeling. This was my first "ride" back on the bike since the W&M sketchy-sketchy-crashfest and my C&O adventures with Michelle which don't really count as training. The weather for the day was pretty decent warming up significantly throughout my ride. One important note about the ride was that I had a guy ride up on my wheel and try to catch a draft not bothering to ask if it was okay to ride on my wheel. I usually wouldn't have a problem with this issue, but just ask, I've been there too when you're exhausted... but you don't just hop on to someones wheel without letting them know you're there. On the next significant climb I just pushed it a little and he was gone, better luck next time!

At the turn around I decided to stop and take some photos of my ride and grab some water and food.

The parkway was pretty dead all day and has a speed limit of 40MPH.

I took this self portrait by just holding my cellphone, but the image looks really fake to me?

About halfway back I decided that a long sleeve jersey and legwarmers was way to much, so I ditched the warmers and gloves.

I rode about halfway back on the parkway and then took Rt. 24 through Vinton into DT Roanoke which was alright but heavily trafficked with folks who apparently don't like cyclist, twice I was almost clipped by mirrors.

The Garmin Connect details Here:

The parkway has a good bit of elevation change, with almost 3,000ft. of climb in 37 miles.

Tried to snag a shot of DT Roanoke as I was headed back into town at a light, silly truck got in my picture.

The Star is where my car was parked, just one long climb until I was back.


The star is pretty massive up close!

The view from the Star, totally worth it!

Power Data from the ride.

It's nice to escape from Blacksburg every now and then and the routine of Mt. Tabor Rd. and Ellet Rd. It felt great to get back on the bike and I'm really excited about the upcoming weekend of cycling at UVA/VCU with two crits.

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Headers

So I got this idea from DCRainmaker of changing the header image every couple weeks or so when I feel an image is worthy of the location. In order from most recent to the original:

Taken on a training ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

A photo I submitted for a Gizmodo Action-Sequence Photography Contest.

The Original. Taken with my BlackBerry Storm while riding in Blacksburg, VA.

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Spring Break = Binge eating and not exercising.

This past week was a "rest" week for me which was actually more of a eat everything in sight and not ride at all type week. Monday began with a trip to my local shop, Spokes Etc. where I was once a bike builder and shop associate; I had the mechanics look at my rear from from Sunday's Sketchy-Sketchy-Crashfest-Road-Race, which left my wheel tweaked and a little out of true. I did manage to get a run in Monday afternoon, this was my first run in a month and my legs felt like lead. A fairly casual run but still seeing what I had in the tank and how fast I could push in preparation for my first triathlon in two weeks. The skinny from the Garmin Here:

The route if you're familiar with the area.

The splits, obviously the last split is my warm down.

Tuesday, my mom and I went down to Georgetown and walked around enjoying the beautiful weather after DC's horrendous winter, the second 60+ day for the DC area this year. While down there we made a stop at Georgetown Cupcake, basically heaven on earth. I enjoyed a delicious mocha cupcake which made it all of about 3 feet from the door before I devoured it in two bites; two bites because I'm well mannered. My mom waited until she got home to enjoy the amazingness of her coconut cupcake.

Making a decision was the toughest part and even though I pigged out all week I managed to have enough self control to only get one.

Decisions...Decisions.

Mocha and Coconut...Yum.

Wednesday, I went to Ida Lee Aquatics center in Leesburg, VA and got a swim workout in with the intention of making a brick workout on the trainer after. The staff wouldn't allow me to set up my trainer inside, silly insurance rules, and it was beginning to rain outside so I wussed out. I didn't feel like sitting on the trainer in a parking lot getting soaked, instead I went to PF Chang's with the rents and Michelle and continued my week of binge eating without repercussions, until next week that is.

Michelle arrived Wednesday morning for a two night stay. Thursday I had the brilliant idea to dust off my sisters old bike in the garage and put some air in the tires so that Michelle and I could go for a ride. Let me preface this next section by a brief background on the Michelle and the bike "situation." It's kinda like pulling teeth... of a angry hippopotamous that is, but I managed after 15 months to finally get Michelle on a bike and without accidents I'm happy to report. A quick test ride down the street and I decided we could managed a trail for an hour or so. I loaded up the bikes and headed north towards Maryland, crossing the Potomac at Whites Ferry.

Michelle survived the test ride without an spills, I was impressed!

I always enjoyed riding this particular ferry as a kid and this was the first time I've taken it since I could drive, it wasn't everything I remembered it to be, but still felt the need to document anyways.

The trip across to MD. For this photo I stayed in the car.

A shot of my ride as we went were on the ferry through the sunroof.

A few notes about the ride, I decided that the C&O Canal would a be great trail for us to ride because during the middle of the week it's low traffic. One thing I didn't realize is that the scenery where we were riding was pretty terrible, with tree's and gravel as the best views. I also had the terrible idea of putting a cooler in my messenger bag and biking to a nice location for a picnic, except there are not nice spots to stop and have a picnic so instead we biked back and had a picnic where we began. After lunch we racked the bikes again and took a quick tour of Poolesville, MD stopping by my aunt and uncles, who were unfortuantely not home before heading back.

Waiting for the ferry to come back before heading home to VA.

Friday morning my new helmet arrived which I ordered from Pricepoint.com, $70 off MSRP is never a bad deal in the cycling world and was much needed due to the crack in my 3 year old Giro Eclipse.


Friday afternoon Michelle headed south towards Richmond and I headed north to Philly for Journey of Hope reunion, more about that to come...

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W&M TT + Sketchy Sketchy W&M RR Crashfest

Two weekends ago the team commenced spring break by heading east to Williamsburg. The team took personal vehicles since everyone was headed separate directions after a weekend of racing at William & Mary. We got a fairly late start leaving around 4:45 and immediately hitting an accident on I-81N that added an additional hour to our already very long drive. A quick stop in Charlottesville for Chipotle, the best race food known to mankind, and back on the road finally arriving around 10:30 at our host house.

My car loaded up for a weekend of racing and home.

I didn't get a very good nights sleep Friday evening, partly due to a cat that decided my head was the perfect place to sleep, but I can't blame my poor performance on Saturday on the cat. I've come to the conclusion that time trialing is my weakness, which is great because that means I know where to improve, the bad part is I have A LOT of room for improvement. Saturday I finished DEAD LAST in my heat.

I don't even want to talk about what first place got for a time. Let's just say it was 30:?? Full Results.

I felt like I put a good effort in but know that it wasn't constant. Below is the Power Data for Saturdays TT:

Power Data with my pyramid warm-up, my TT in the middle, and cool down back to the start.

Only the TT data.

After the TT the team relaxed and enjoyed the gorgeous weather and food the Aber's provided, we're really getting spoiled with them traveling with us every weekend.

Jacob's family was nice enough to bring the team lunch, delicious pulled pork.

I decided to head to Richmond for the night and spend time with my family. My new race food of choice is meatball subs because apparently two of those and I was good to go for Sunday. I also got a great nights sleep, about 10 hours which I believe helped as well. Sunday morning I headed back to Richmond for the RR which was being held at KOA (Kampground of America) Williamsburg. Michelle made the drive to see me which was additional incentive to ride well for the day.

The road race was three-laps of sketchy-sketchy mayham and carnage, Period. The field was one of the larger fields this year with 46 Mens C riders STARTING the race, **note starting**. The first lap was fairly casual except for a fairly unusual move by a Johns Hopkins rider who chased down his own teammate who had a decent gap on a break. Two events to note during the first lap were a rider getting a flat directly infront of me and me letting him know so that he didn't wipe out half the field another rider getting a flat and taking out half of the field. The second lap was pretty calm with a few more riders flatting and the field splintered from the first crash. At the end of the third lap right before the finish I was sitting top 10 in the field when the lead vehicle opened up both lanes as we crossed a bridge right before the final uphill. This....this is where everything went wrong, the Mens C field has caught the womens field and they had been neutralized taking one lane at the bottom of the hill, this is after we had gone two lanes wide and were doing around 30MPH. The field had to quickly react and bottlenecked back to one lane trying to work around the womens field. This is where the crashing began, I kicked it and never looked back, two crashed to left of me, another to the right I saw only 3 riders ahead of me as I went over the line. Turns out another guy got me at the line but a 5th place finish and managing to keep the rubber side down was a success in my book.

I was very excited until I had learned that of the four riders from VT in the Mens C field I was the only rider unscathed from the crashfestival that unfolded. I was lucky, my friend Andy Reagan was not. He unfortunately folded his bars nearly in half and suffered abrasions on the shoulder and legs, but thankfully only abrasions and not broken bones.

Road Race power file, the giant spike at the end is the uphill sprint finish.

My first top 5 finish, 5th of 46 overall. Results Here.

During the crashfest uphill final sprint my wheel got hit pretty good and I had to take my bike into the shop to get it trued. Spring break update to come...

A recap of the weekend by Reid Beloni on VeloNews Here.

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Week in Review + W&M Preview + Spring Break!

Update: This photo is the ride back from the Naval academy when I was playing around with my Gorilla Pod, I thought the photo came out really cool with the blur and decided I wanted to share.

Gorilla Pod with Rebel XT - DSLR

The quality of my training continues to increase as the season progresses having an opportunity to ride everyday but Tuesday this week. Monday's SAYG'esque ride set the pace for the rest of the week with a rest day Tuesday and a 45 miler on Wednesday. On Wednesday I went out with the team for a group ride, 6 of us riding together. We initially planned for ~2 hours but everyone wanted to do more and I wasn't about to make everyone ride less so I just went with the flow.

We have a pretty gorgeous ride out Mt. Tabor Rd. all the way until we hit Rt. 311 and came back Blacksburg Rd., taking just over 2.5 hours. Garmin Connect details here.

Power Data from Wednesdays ride.

The Garmin Connect data from Wednesday ride, see all those topo lines...Yeah you're tellin' me.

After the ride I grabbed a quick bite and headed to TriAdventure Triathlon practice where we had an opportunity to run through transitions and then headed to the pool for an hour of swimming. My legs were pretty exhausted by the time I got in the pool but I felt really good in the pool and confident about the swim portion of my upcoming triathlon.

Coach Kelly told me should would laugh at me if I stopped to tie my shoes during a transition and recommened I purchase a set of Yankz, elastic shoe laces that make transitions easier apparently (I just didn't want to be laughed at by my coach and fell into the peer pressure). We all received these VERY bright orange swim caps that has their logo, but more importantly will allow our coaches to see where we are in the pool.

Yankz shoe laces and our VERY bright orange TriAdventure swim caps.

which of course I had to try on...That's my swimming fish face, kinda goofy Haha.

Thursday afternoon I hopped on the trainer in the evening for two efforts at LT. Last week during my time trial I recorded new 10 minute and 30 minute peak power, 243 and 226 Watts respectively, which I then interpolated to find my new 20 minute LT of 235 or around 220Watts for 60 minutes. That's what I aimed for on my ride yesterday during my 2x15 min. efforts. I was pretty happy with the intervals:

Power Data from Thursdays LT trainer ride.

This morning I did my usual Friday morning routine of cleaning my bike and packing all of my bags for another weekend of racing, except this weekend I had to pack for a week at home for spring break. While cleaning my bike I decided it was time to retire the American Flag tape and upgrade to Fi'zi:k tape.

What the tape used to look like before it had been ridden for a few months.

My new ish...or New Hotness!

The new hotness is for this weekends race at William and Mary. Now one funny thing about William & Mary is that it's the second oldest university in the U.S. and they still don't have a mascot. I mean 400 years and you can't figure out a mascot? Really? At one point they were the Tribe and then the Ebirt (Tribe Backwards), seriously?

Continuing on, the weekend consists of a 12-Individual Time Trial tomorrow and a road race on Sunday. I'm finally not first in the Men's C which is exciting and will hopefully results in a better performance.

The courses:

Saturday's TT Course

Sunday's RR - 28 miles, 3 loops.

And now I'm off to the race (well I leave in 30 minute but have to carry all of my stuff down to my car).

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Navy Time Trial Recap + Monday's ride

The last thing I expected Sunday morning was snow for our time trial but that is what Mother Nature had in mind for us (granted the snow wasn't significant and was more like a heavy flurry); we were all surprised by the weather and were not excited about riding (or at least I wasn't).

Andy setting up the tripod. The team after arriving and unloading vans.

Silly camera phone couldn't get the snow falling, but that's what this photo was supposed to be of.

I arrived well rested after an evening spent at home in my own bed and well fed with an excellent meal at my favorite restaurant Sweetwater Tavern. The site of the race was Davidsonville, MD - a.k.a The-Middle-of-Nowhere. The surrounding area of Davidsonville was comprised mainly of farms and small back roads, which was good since the race course was open to traffic and made for minimal interference during the race.

This was only my second TT but in reality was my first true test as last weeks "TT" if you want to call it that was really a prologue when comparing 2.5-ish miles to 17 (later found it the total distance was only 14 and change). I arrived about an hour before my race started so it was right to business getting myself dressed and on a trainer for a proper warm-up, which I'm still trying to figure out. After gathering all of my gear I got on the trainer for about 15 minutes and "warmed-up." Immediately after I rolled over to the start where I was a few minutes early, just enough time to make sure everything was set with my Garmin 310XT for recording the ride and that my PowerTap head unit was actually on unlike the previous day.

I was first in my category AGAIN as I don't have a time to place me later in que since it goes slowest to fastest, which may not seem bad but I think I would do better if I had people to chase. I began the race with the goal to maintain or average my believed LT, 200 Watts. When I reached the halfway point in my race, around 22-minutes, I felt pretty good and decided I could go harder on the way back. On my way back I caught the last of the Men's D riders and quickly left him behind me. One of the really cool things about an out and back course is that you get to see everyone else in your race which was great having teammates encouragement in those last few miles. As I came around the last corner I gave it everything I had and pushed hard all the way through the line, I know there has to be a few goofy photos of me online somewhere coming through the finish with a look of pain on my face (not deserving so with my time). I put in a quick cool down and cleaned up in record time so I could spend some extra time with my dad at lucnh. I was very happy with my performance and felt that I came out of the race accomplishing my goals: 1. Don't blow up 2. Average 200 Watts. View my Garmin Connect Details for the TT.

The course as recorded by the Garmin 310XT, not nearly as straight as the course map made us believe.

Power Data from my TT, AVG 216 Watts.

After finding out my official time compared the rest of my field I was disappointed with how I finished because even though I accomplished my goals, in the end I didn't perform very well.

Men's Collegiate C results.

After the rest of the races had finished we loaded up the bikes in the cargo van and headed back south towards Blacksburg, exhausted from a weekend of racing....but not before we made a stop at Red Robin.

Side note:

Dear Red Robin,

Don't be stingy on the free fries because we're going to make you more busy sending you back for more, so just bring full baskets.... and lots of them.

Sincerely,

Hungry Cyclists

We were all pretty hungry, even me for my second lunch. While we were waiting for our orders the team had a blast with the children's menu and even made competitions of who could finish the word-find and word scrambles the fastest.

Justin M. and Reid racing for glory.

You'd think it's an engineering exam (which all of these guys are) with how intently they were working on it.

The weekend ended with a long drive home most of which I slept through, sorry Reid.

Mondays Ride:
After I got off work at 2 on Monday I decided to go for a SAYG ride to ease in the recovery process from a hard weekend of racing and get my legs ready for another week of training. One of the problems with Blacksburg is that there isn't much flat other than the town, so even if you want an easy recovery ride it's difficult to find/achieve.

I went out for a SAYG'esque ride trying to keep my power below about 118 (I wound up averaging 133 for the ride, so not too high far over).

Power from the SAYG ride.

The route. You can see everywhere you go outside of town there's mountains.

A photo of the road, particularly the incline.

Still lots of snow in Blacksburg and the surrounding areas.

The last photo of the bike with Captain America tape.

The rest of the week has been good so far with Tuesday as an off day and lots of activity today. More on today's workout to come and a preview of William & Mary race weekend.

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