sarals 

Hermes, I've asked around about the course. No one has raced it recently. The only thing anyone seems to recall as any sort of an issue is the "hill".. It's mentioned, at least, but the culverts aren't.

Shovel, that 130 degree turn I mentioned - I'm going to hang out there prior to my race and watch how it's handled. It would be my bet, too, that if anything bad happens, that would be the place.

Chasm - California neighborhood streets! That's what they're like around here.

Racer Ex 

Did a split workout yesterday. Morning I rode my "lower loop", an hour with 1200' of climbing. Pretty hot and humid (90/90), but a steady 50 TSS ride. Came home, jumped in the pool to cool off and drank my recovery drink while playing with the dogs. It's pretty funny watching a dog land in the water from below the surface.

Hit the track late afternoon. Another 50 TSS workout focusing on some team pursuit, flying 500, 750, and 1250 efforts. Tried to do some more aero testing on base bars but had some issues with mounting the head unit on one set, placed in my pocket the head unit recorded sporadically on one of the runs so the data is spacy.

Think I'm going to do more of these split workouts to try to bump up my fitness and speed for road nats, while keeping the speed I need for track.

sarals 

Did an easy one hour spin session this morning, I'm recovering now. I never exceeded 75% power, and kept my heart rate below LTR for most of the session. When I did feel burn, I'd back off. I kept my cadence at 90 - 100 or so, except for two 1 minute "bursts" (at low effort) after warmup where I ran it up to 110 RPM. My legs feel fresh, they recovered very quickly, and I have no lingering effects. That tells me I went easy, and I'm as ready as I'm going to be at my current state of fitness.

I hope I can keep my nerves under control. I'll concentrate hard on that. Also, I need to make sure I have a decent warmup, and I have a plan for that, based on suggestions I've gotten here.

I'm eating protein right now, trying to get the reserves topped off! Darn, I'd love to have a Costco Dog, but that's way over the top!

Hermes

Ex, Kristen Armstrong is an advocate of using track pursuit to improve road TTs. I thinks she has the best spin in pro women's cycling.

Hermes

2 hours on the TT bike 110 TSS. It was a beautiful day with cool temperatures and sunny. The focus was longer z4 power efforts.

VanceMac

Up and down couple weeks that reflected my (unintentional) focus on shorter distances and intensity this year.

The good: Had a very good road time trail (20k), a pretty good effort in a crit with a strong field, an outstanding Roger's session at the track (which ended with 4 laps solo to finish the motor game), and decent effort at a track omnium.

The bad: Yesterday went out for a long climbing ride. Now, my forte (relatively speaking, of course) has always been climbing and endurance. And I had a stretch in May/June where I mixed in a long climbing ride every week for 4 weeks (ranged from 7k-9.5k) and it seemed to be going pretty good. But yesterday was a disaster. Went out a little too hot for the first segment (a little over an hour and half), not blazing fast. But that was pretty much the end of my day. The group ended up with 100/11k, but I limped home with half that.

I suppose it could be that I'm overdue for a rest week, or just a bad day, or whatever. But it was discouraging.

AzTallRider

2 hours of just riding around, after three days off the bike. It was nice to ask my fresh legs for some power and have them say "yes sir" rather than getting all namby-pamby and whining about it. But speaking of "yes sirs". we were off picking up my 16yo step-son after what was essentially a 10 day Marine Corps mini-boot-camp. He got sick early on, and had great opportunities to HTFU, which he did. Among his take-aways were that officers have it a lot better than the enlisted men and women. (Duh!) That, and not making a single decision for 10 straight days. He mentioned he never used the sweat-pants that were on the packing list. When his mom asked if that was because it was too much trouble to take his boots off and switch to the sweat-pants in the evening, he said no, that was because nobody ever told them to put on their sweat-pants.

Hermes

2 hour endurance ride featuring a ride up Kings Mountain at SST power. It is not quite as long as the Diablo 10K ITT climb but it is steeper. We had another beautiful day with moderate temperatures and sunny skies.

tony2v

No training yesterday instead spent 7.5 hrs painting the San Diego Velodrome. The SoCal Elite Tracks is coming this weekend July 21-22. Also no Adult Track class tonight cuz the gang is finishing the painting and it needs 24 hrs to dry, but just in time for racing tomorrow night...TNR!

Racer Ex 

I'll be down for the 4k.

tony2v

Great Ex, I'll be there helping out all weekend

Hermes

Yesterday, I worked out in the gym in the afternoon (core / back) and did some hill work on Kings Mountain getting ready for the Mount Diablo 10K ITT on Saturday. My climbing legs are coming back but I did do the climbs at higher cadence. My power numbers were solid.

VanceMac

Took Sun-Mon off, then skipped the usual Tue workout. Can 3 days count as a rest week?

Red Rider

We rode the tandem and had some fun...not like the TT we did a couple weeks ago.

So does this go in the Tandem Forum or here?

Color me confused.

We're old. We ride and race a tandem bike. We also ride & race our half bikes. Not sure where we fit.

Nevermind; we don't fit anywhere...guess we'll figure it out.

chasm54

Or, you could take the view that you are lucky enough to fit in lots of different places. I'm over 50. I train, I race. I ride road bikes. I ride a fixed gear. I tour. I used to commute. I'm big. I do my own wrenching. I follow pro cycling. As a result I post in quite a lot of forums. It doesn't seem to be a problem.

VanceMac

Answer: no. Went for a short MTB ride yesterday... had no power. Weird after a nice month of feeling strong. Maybe Roger can revitalize me tonight.

Still, even a bad day on the bike is a good day:

AzTallRider

I usually feel weak on the first ride after a rest, especially if it isn't long enough to get me back in the groove. But the next ride? That's a different story.

Nice view!

chasm54

Me, too. Anyone know the physiological reason for this? It seems common, if not universal.

Racer Ex 

I won the tandem state TT this year.

Tandems are allowed, as long as you race them.

Hermes

I came off of an easy day, rest day, easy day and then a hard day. The hard day felt crappy. It takes me a couple of sessions to get back up to speed. I do not have the hey I feel great after a rest period. That is not to say that I do not need it or that I benefit.

Also, I assume that is Mountaingatc Country Club. I used to golf and belong to the club and I lived on the bluff on the right on a Promontory Road. It was definitely the best house and view I have had.

Hermes

Finished a track workout. I confirmed that a peak is not a plateau. My power was good for 1 Kilo and then turned to crap. Also, the Planet X wheels suck compared to the Fast Forward wheels. I was substantially slower by a couple of miles per hour for about the same power. It may have been atmospheric conditions but....

VanceMac

Correct. Great neighborhood!

Cleave

Hi, between you and Racer Ex, I'll save a lot of money on equipment choices. Maybe you two should start a thread comparing equipment based on power and speed.

AzTallRider

Just don't forget to use Internet speeds.

Hermes

I downloaded the firmware for my Garmin that converts actual power and speed to Internet.