valygrl

Sub-5hour tailwind century today. will pay for it tomorrow with 30mph headwind, but it was fun today!

sarals 

Wow. That's SOME headwind, VG. As long as it's fun, great!

IBOHUNT

2 hours with a team mate today just riding up some hills; @revchuck about 3,000' worth
TSS 163
TSB is in the ditch

valygrl

I'll probably get in the van for some (all?) of the day. Nothing fun about that kind of headwind.

IBOHUNT

As was told to me the other day when battling 20 mph winds with gusts to 30...

"Headwinds are awesome. Twice the work for half the road"

Yeah, I don't think so Tim. Not when it's 40 degrees out.

valygrl

I rode to the first rest stop and then got in the car.

Heathpack 

Hey, you're on vacation, right?

sarals 

That's how I feel right now.

I did my Wednesday training ride with my friend Barb. She was all over me on the steeper pitches to stay in and work - which I did. TSS 140 Legs, rubber...

Racer Ex 

1:40 on the TT bike yesterday, 2000 feet or so of climbing with the 42 x 25. Stayed in the aerobars for the most part, aerodynamics being critical on a ride like this. Dropped from 11.25 MPH to 11.23 when I went to the bullhorns on the climb.

Upside of living on a mountain are the views. Downside is the 1200' of climbing to get home everyday.

IBOHUNT

Raised the saddle on the TT bike 6 MM then did a 1x20 @105% in the sticks. First time I've managed to accomplish an assigned task in quite some time. Have to thank @Racer Ex, @sarals and @Heathpack for the support the past 2+ weeks. Some great folks that I've never had the pleasure of actually meeting.

On another good note my CFO (wife) said I can continue getting TRS spreadsheets for a while. As kids theses days would say... PoundSignAwesome.

TSS 104.

Tomorrow is a much needed day off the bike.

Heathpack 

Sweet.

valygrl

Yesterday's short day enabled today's awesome day of climbing - half way up Mt Graham and then over the south end of the range for 90 miles, 6000' and 360 TSS. I rode the mt graham climb at 2 watts below LT for 1:09 and then was able to ride pretty strong the rest of the day. Thinking its time to test.

Racer Ex 

Did you visit anyone at the prison?

That's a fun climb. Big TSS...

2 hours with teammates yesterday.

sarals 

Yes it is!!!

(@IBOHUNT, You're welcome! )

sarals 

I had two very strong training rides, yesterday and the day before. On yesterday's ride, which featured big gear drills, long intervals, and then sprints, I was having trouble - staying BELOW the high target. Which, by the way, is the trouble I had last year when i was getting close to form. I'm up almost two pounds, too - and it's in my legs, no where else (well, maybe some is between my ears). I'm getting close to stride - head is screwed on right and now my body is coming around.

Heathpack 

Fun group ride for me in wind last night. Well, the wind was not so fun but the rest of it was.

Openers today but not for a race. I'm scouting the LLA State TT course tomorrow. Couldn't really ride the Openers with the group ride that happened this am, their route was inappropriate. But I met them for breakfast after and we had a fun chatty time over coffee and a bite to eat.

I have lost one of my vacation pounds already. We'll see if I gain it back over Easter!

sarals 

Early (like Nightcrawler early, Heathie) run this morning. More of a run, then walk a little, because my HR strap kept slipping and I'd stop to fiddle with it. Still, nice run. I'm sure I'll feel it later today.

Heathpack 

@<a href="https://www.bikeforums.net/member.php?u=207647" target="_blank">sarals</a>, I did not see it on Strava. Therefore it did not happen.

Scouting ride for me today on the Lake Los Angeles state TT course. My only previous ride out there was kind of miserable for some reason, to the extent that I didn't even ride the last leg out of fear of creating an aversion to the course. I finally got some video of me on the TT bike on that ride, which prompted a position change and I will say things have felt way better since.

Today I went out with no specific instructions beyond scouting, but I figured I should try to lay down a decent race-like effort. It wound up being only 95% threshold, so not quite a race pace. It felt fairly-but-not-terribly hard. Very benign conditions, light winds, maybe 3-5 mph, in the reverse of the typical wind direction.

This is a rectangular course, mostly flat. You head out on one of the long legs of the rectangle, which is slightly up hill. Today was a tailwind but its usually a head wind. Then you have right turn, short leg, right turn, long leg, right turn short leg, right turn and then you finish by riding the first leg a second time.

You can't really get lost, because in each instance, your turn in the first right turn you come to. But someone last time I failed to notice a couple of street signs for dirt roads, these confused me twice today and I came out of aero to try to figure out iif my turn was coming. The third ride turn was very slow and wide, on account of gravel in the road. And on the last leg I got chased by a huge dog (and chased by him again during my cool down) and spooked by four rottweilers shortly after, I thought they were loose too. So two more blips out of aero.

No disc wheel, no skin suit. I don't know exactly where the start/finish are, but if the Strava segment labelled "scnca TT championship" is correct, my time was 1:03:08. Sweet. Because I'd like to: 1. go sub 60 minutes on this (seems doable) and 2. make the podium (would've with that time last year, although who knows what conditions were that day?).

Happy with it. Although I for sure could have ridden it harder.

Video of the Grasshopper in motion:

https://youtu.be/xz2SSQ1JR0U

valygrl

Nice heathpack! Now just cross your fingers for similar wind and you should go sub-60, which would be super cool!!

I am finished with my arizona training camp. With TSB at -71, one would think I would be looking forward to my rest week. We'll see, I bet by Tuesday I'll be crawling out of my skin.

Racer Ex 

Lens filter? pretty cool shot.

VG...I'm not sure I've ever seen that kind of neg TSB...

Didn't ride the last two days. Worked on the new bike and hung out with Mrs. Ex. Might go long tomorrow. Monday it's supposed to snow again.

Heathpack 

Iphone.

chasm54

Utterly ridiculous Easter Sunday food and drink intervals yesterday. Gained two pounds.

Heathpack 

Yesterday was a fun group ride with my casual friends. 40 miles, 1800 ft climbing but nothing very difficult. Today's a rest day for me and its always nice to get a JRA ride before a rest day, you can really just ride however you want. One 15 min 2-3% grade up into a canyon, great place for a TT interval. Plus a few other easy hills. Basically just noodling around and having fun.

Then Easter potluck party comprised of most of these same people. "Hey let me bring some wines I got on my trip." Beautiful sunny Easter Sunday, we drank wine (and bloody Marys) all afternoon.

Overall, it was a really nice first week back from vacation, I enjoyed every ride I did. And I got a new pic to use for my Strava profile:

sarals 

Great position, Heathie!

Heathpack 

Yesterday was three 20-min 105% intervals on the TT bike. Boo yah. Got it done (for the most part), which seemed unlikely to me when I first saw that on my schedule. It was really cold out, 37F, so I was glad to be working hard.

Today some big gear work on the TT bike, followed by an hour of high (for me) cadence. I find it surprisingly tiring to keep up that high cadence stuff continuously. Today was just as cold as yesterday, we were supposed to be a group of five but one bailed because of the cold. The other is having some soreness in his back, decided to rest up prior to his stage race which starts Fri. So just the core three Nightcrawlers. Coffee after, which was awesome after riding in the chill.

I'm off the bike tomorrow and then openers on Fri for the Piru 40k TT on Sat.