revchuck 

1:30 at endurance pace today, and it was painful - apparently I pushed myself really hard yesterday. My legs were really tight and sore. My Garmin 520 has a recovery estimation tool, and yesterday it said 3 days; I just rolled my eyes. 3 days recovery from a 1:39 ride? Yeah, right. It also has a tool that estimates how well you've recovered that comes on at the 12 minute point in your next ride. It's always come up as "good" except on two occasions; one was the ride back to the motel room an hour after having done the Austin Livestrong ride (TSS 369) last October, the other was today. I have no idea how accurate those tools are, but they did point in the right direction this time.

15-20 mph wind today, too. Icing on the cake.

Recovery ride tomorrow, rest day Tuesday. I'm ready for them.

Bandera

Oddly enough cycling is a pedaling sport, musing about pedaling dynamics is thought time well spent to be applied on the road.

-Bandera

sarals 

About to head for an hour or so JRA. The saddle on the Look needs adjusting, it needs to be lowered slightly and moved back slightly. I tried to do it, and the seat post is completely frozen. It will not budge. It looks like a trip to the LBS later in the week. And, I guess I'll be aboard the Venge today. Coach likes having power, anyway....

Happy Cold Holidays!

Heathpack 

Crazy strong first-ride-back-in-Caklifornia this morning, with two of my favorite people. And coffee after. Perfect.

It was cold though & wicked windy. Just felt good, made everything hard which was what I was in the mood for.m just hunkered down & pedaled hard. We were planning on riding through a local canyon but the winds back there can get really squirrelly and there's dump trucks up & down that road right now, clearing dirt from mud flows from last weeks rain.

So after 10 miles of gradual uphill into a strong headwind, we just turned around. Tailwind, 1% downhill grade, long uninterrupted stretches of bike path & my friend George happy to pull. That's QOM territory y'all. Got two. Love it, such a fun ride.

Then so tired of eating junk over the holidays. Shopped & cooked some good stuff: buttermilk herb dip, crudités, roasted mushrooms, muesli, candied grapefruit peel (my grapefruit tree is finally producing this year! And OMG the lemon tree too, I have a zillion. Can we say lemon curd y'all? And lemon marmalade???), cheesy bread, blackberry jam. Whew. Tired.

Back to work tomorrow.

Heathpack 

Oh yeah. For dinner, I have enchiladas suiza in the oven. Homemade pickled Mexican cabbage to go with it.

And baked pineapple which we'll have over vanilla ice cream.

Yeah and then I'll have to burn some calories tomorrow am. No prob. More wind,

revchuck 

An hour at recovery pace today. My legs felt decent, and improved steadily through the ride. Off the bike tomorrow, easy day at the gym, then back to it on Wednesday.

Hermes

Intervals on Fiesta today. Sunny and not much wind with temps in the mid 60s. Fiesta was okay but there was a little mud and sand left over from the rain.

shovelhd

I did the WBR Impact ride yesterday on Zwift. This is advertised as an hour of 2.5-3.5 w/kg but even with a leader it goes substantially higher. I worked to stay in the lead group and avoided the sprints. I fell off on the last lap when the pace was a solid 3.5-4.5. I can do that on the road but on the trainer with zero rest it's a challenge. I know if I started structured training again I could make some gains but there's no real point in that for me at this stage.

Heathpack 

1:30 JRA for me this am. Rode through a favorite canyon with a helpful friend who just wanted to hash out my work stress. I finally had to say, "you know, I don't really want to solve that right now. I just want to ride my bike..."


Tired legs this am, but the ride went well anyway. Cold, dark and windy though.


And first post-Christmas weigh-in. Christmas Miracle: I did not gain any weight!


Back to work in a few...

echappist

Out of curiosity, how does one go to the front and drill it on zwift? If one is shown to be at the back and dials it to 400 W, does the rider magically get teleported to the front?

revchuck 

Gym today, mostly core stuff. If you do side planks long enough, they effin' hurt.

shovelhd

Pretty much. Your position on the course is determined by your w/kg, the draft, and the terrain.

BTW every race starts like a CX holeshot but for 10 minutes. Flat out.

Heathpack 

OMG, day 1 of my sugar detox did not go very well. Baklava intervals at work today. Homemade, gift from a client, how could I resist that??? I ate three damn pieces.


And then some fancy Belgian chocolate-covered cookies.

revchuck 

I feel your pain. A fellow rider is a local business owner, and he's working hard to lose weight. He removes temptation by bringing the goodies his clients gave him for Christmas over to the shop where I work. The bastid.

sarals 

I ALSO feel your pain! My reptile brain has taken over. I now have to loose five pounds.

Why do we do this to ourselves???

sarals 

Hellyer again today. Eight sessions, now.

Today, more work with Barb. Coach wanted a "couple of flying 200's". We did three. We also did a thirty six lap warmup, some mock pursuit "rolling" starts (5 MPH at the 2K line), and some skills drills. I was riding 84 inch and change gearing today, I've graduated from "beginner gearing" to "slightly better than beginner" gearing. It wore me down more than the 81 inch gearing I had been riding, and as the session moved on, I had increasing trouble getting over the hump and getting my cadence going. On the last 200, I finally got it going (and OMG did it hurt), and managed almost 32 MPH and 120 RPM - which isn't fast and isn't spinning high enough. My power at 120 RPM was way down, so I was just turning the pedals and not gaining. And, that was at the line.

Getting there. It won't happen over night. If I keep gaining weight it won't happen at all...

revchuck 

A combination of only intermittent cheating and doing fasted or stupid-hard rides has kept me almost even. Almost.

IBOHUNT

Both ya'll are better off than I am. Very little training and more work than I want has left me on the bad side of the fence. The @Heathpack recovery drinks are good to me as well; guess my local addition of an ingredient (clear) doesn't help

Did manage to do some work yesterday 3.2 miles ru**i*g at noon then some criss cross sst stuff in the evening.

Bandera

The Wind Won.
Strained my right hip fighting it day before yesterday: Off the bike for a few days.
Might as well go see Rogue 1 and cook something good that does not involve a lot of standing for prep.

-Bandera

IBOHUNT

Wind-tervals....

revchuck 

1:30 at endurance pace with 2x(3x1') one-legged drills yesterday. The middle 30' was supposed to be at the upper end of endurance pace; it ended up being two watts under SST and that's because I made myself slow down a couple of times. I love that feeling after a bit of rest.

The wind is in the process as I type of changing from south to north, will be 15-20 mph by the time I get out to ride. I'll just pretend I'm climbing.

IBOHUNT

35 minutes of ru**i*g on a treadmill at noon then 60 minutes of pace followed by some big gear work inspired by @Heathpack after work.

Heathpack 

Happy to be your muse, @IBOHUNT.

Yesterday I had big gear workout with some of that mega hard cadence work after, the high rpm high power stuff. Hard! I did it on the trainer and learned my California trainer has way more resistance than my NY trainer.

Today strength/core workout.

Happy to report zero baklava consumption yesterday and only 4-5 of the crack-like fancy Belgian cookies.

Meditation daily, stretching almost every day.

A freakishly light yet large package arrived at the house yesterday. Return address: Bakersfield. I suspect Mr H repaired his rift with the shop that had that discontinued set of bars I wanted. We celebrate Christmas next week, I guess I'll find out soon enough...

Mom might get moved to the rehab hosp today.

sarals 

Yesterday was rest. Today is more "cadence stuff".

revchuck 

If by that you mean January 6, that's a special celebration in Louisiana too - Twelfth Night is the first night of Mardi Gras season! Glad to hear the news about your Mom.

2:55 at endurance pace this morning. I had wanted it to be at a moderate pace, but I had a lot of time riding into a 15 mph headwind and pushed harder than I thought I did. I was hoping for an IF of about .65 and a 120-ish TSS, but ended up with an IF of .75 and TSS 166. Hard interval set tomorrow, hope I didn't screw myself up.