2 hrs of Z2 this morning, some bookend riding around a "C" pace group ride on Zwift. Nice steady pedaling, good conversation.

I had some twinges of knee pain during my MTB ride yesterday morning, which gave me PTSD/flashbacks to when I had to take a month easy after my backpacking trip last year. Some Ibuprofen, good sleep, stretching/rolling last night and KT tape this morning seemed to hush things down. Ride this morning was fine.

I'll throw some photos up of the mountaineering trip later. 30 miles over a few days, about half of that cross-country off trail. Very hard. I almost made it up Mt Darwin (13,800') on the class three route, but some exposure and off-route class 4+ moves (oops) got me a little spooked. Poorly planned, too late in the day to relax and keep going. Great trip overall.

Tried the interval session again today with a fresh charge on the wahoo elemnt and ended up with record power numbers for the year for 5' and 10', and felt like I had another 5% or more power in reserve. 3 more weeks for this block of polarized training then possibly back to another block of sweet spot. Motocross tomorrow and mountain bikes Sunday. Should be a great weekend...

killer, enjoy!

Long weekend on two wheels... my five year old is getting REALLY fast in the woods and is almost ready to step up to a 20". He definitely has been bitten by the two-wheel bug...

2 hr z2 with a few vo2 intervals. Set another 5’ power record for 2022 by 5% again on the last one with gas left in the tank. *Only* 60 more watts to get to my 2020 power lol.

Welcome back and keep up the great work plus breathing life into this thread. I will join you. I have some results that I will post up later.

Last week I competed in Masters Track Worlds in Carson, CA.

I did team sprint, team pursuit and individual pursuit. My results were pretty pedestrian but I got to see a lot of my racing friends and connected with some that I raced with and against in various venues.

And we had a great time with the team events although we did the races as a team without practice and just lined up and raced. Putting together teams is hard since one has to have track time to practice and generally need a coach or someone to help with the organization.

My racing is over and I am into strength and adaptation and not a lot of riding. I did 4 hours of endurance over the weekend and some TTT work with my wife this AM.

^
good times participating at track worlds Hermes. There were a couple SDBC riders there, and Michael Morrison did great in the 50/55+ endurance events! He is still P/1/2 caliber around here on the road.

Coming off my third consecutive day off, out on Texas for a work manager training thing. They do have Ebikes and some trails around, but they're the kind that you can just throttle at 700w and blast around. That was kinda fun.

This weekend I have the Grizzly 100k MTB race up in Big Bear Ca, 10,000'+ elevation gain, 6,000'+ average elevation on course, mostly twisty, sandy (slow) single track. It's tough. I'm at local minimum in fitness during the calendar year, so for me it will mostly be a participation event. Purse is $1,000 for top place so it attracts some big names in the dirt endurance scene. Should be fun! I have some friends and family coming to stay with me and we have a cabin with a BBQ grill and hot tub that is walking distance from the village. Good times.

Early z2 ride today, nothing crazy, just a couple of hours on the bike and getting to watch the sun come up and blast some good music. Today is going to be a good one.

Here is our 65+ 4Km 16 laps of the 250 track team pursuit video courtesy of my wife - good videography. We were 4 of 4 teams. We set the lineup based upon size and projected capability. We set the lap times at 22 seconds per lap based upon one lap pulls with the goal of finishing together. There was one racer who was a 23 second lap guy and we hoped he could hang. It turned out that he took two pulls and came off and we finished with 3 and picked up the pace for the last two kilos.

Our start was a little rocky when the second man got hung up at the start. My job was to get on his wheel however, I did not see him and just kept going and staying in my lane waiting and hoping he would show up. By the time he came through, he was accelerating and now I had to accelerate more than I would have liked. It put even more pressure on our last racer.

We got together on the back straight. When we came through for our second lap time, the call was 20.8. Okay, that is a time we should have been able to do but too fast for our one guy. I slowed the pace to target on the 3rd lap.

Of the four teams, we had the best execution even taking into account the start. The other teams, although faster were not great. One team almost crashed as a 4th rider was a 1/4 lap behind at the start and stayed there for a lap and the the first rider came off the banking and almost hit him on lap 2 driving him off the track over the light blue band onto the dark blue apron,

Fortunately, no one crashed. I asked the officials if that was a relegation for riding off the track. The answer is no because it was on the straight section and they did not gain advantage. Well, the advantage was they did not crash. Contrast that ruling to a ruling in the points race where riders were warned for riding on the light blue band. We take our officiating as we find it and I just ride these things and let the officiating to officials. If the other team would have been relegated, we got a medal. So no points awarded for riding on the track.

16 laps is a long distance for team pursuit and it is the distance used in the Olympics and international racing/pro racing. It is interesting that UCI used to have the distance set at 3km or 12 laps for the 50+ masters so it was 4 men 3km. In 2018, in LA, the women complained that they were not be treated as equals to men since they had to race 3 women 3km.

The rules were changed to 3 women 2Km. Then it was changed again to the current 4 men 4Km and 4 women 4Km. So the women got what they asked for…equivalence to men. But how did men go from 3k to 4K? And the real complaint from the women was not enough age groups NOT the distance or the number of riders. Be careful for what you ask!

Now the problem for the women is not enough women to fill out teams. We have a similar problem for the men as the age category gets older. The men would be better off with 3 men 3km.

Felt great yesterday, went to bed at a normal time and woke up with great metrics for RHR and HRV. For some reason I logged an abnormally large amount of REM sleep, almost double my typical amount. I usually get a consistent 70-90 mins, last night I got 150 mins (at least according to the software). Didn't think anything of it, but my whole body just felt trashy before I hopped on the bike so I called it quits and just went on a short walk instead. Felt off the entire day in fact. There's always tomorrow.

100 minute ride, 60 min z2 with 40 min z4. I felt like I had a TON of power on tap and could've smashed all of this years power records today, but kept to the planned workout. Motocross tomorrow and most likely a long ride and some MTB with the family again on Sunday.

I've definitely been fully converted to "polarized". Even setting aside whatever scientific benefits there might be, I really like that I can do steady rides most of the week and just let myself off the hook, not feeling like I have to push harder. Then on the hard days, I try to challenge myself. These last couple of years I've been as strong as I ever have, and that's at 46, where I might ordinarly expect to start to see a dip, so I think it's working.

Cased a double, twice, and my right knee did not like it. The pain I had from the crash, that’s been virtually gone as of late, is back. Not nearly as bad but enough to make me think about taking some more time off from it. Dang it.

Still got in a pain free 2 1/2 hour z2 ride in today so I’m pretty happy i can do that!

Completed the Grizzly 100k MTB race last weekend in ~6:40 elapsed time. 8,000' vertical, 6,500' average elevation. Lots of sandy, slow singletrack. Very hard. Didn't check results, but probably just outside the top 20 of 100+ starters. My buddy (who stayed with us) got 17th and finished about 10 min before me.

My plan was to hit the first climb sort of hard, so I could get over Skyline and down the Seven Oaks descent in good position, since that descent can be a bottleneck. It is sandy and extremely steep in sections and there are often crashes and very disparate speeds. After that, my "race" was basically done and the last 4 hours of the race I was just doing my own tempo and surviving.

The next Santa Ana river trail is about 10 miles of gradually downhill singletrack, and I got passed like 6 or 7 times, just from other people being better/more skilled mountain bikers. Some seriously good MTB'ers out there, both up and down. Up next was the hour+ Clark's grade climb which was really difficult, steep, and at times rocky and technical. After the top, I almost bailed as my left quad was cramping with each pedal stroke. I walked my bike for 3-4 minutes and then I was able to continue pedalling, albeit cautiously. I stopped at most aid stations briefly just to down a gel and grab a solid snack. I think I spent about 10-12 minutes total off the bike.

The last final climb up to Skyline was truly miserable, but my grimace turned to a grin as I knew the elevation was done and the ride mostly over. There were lots of hikers on this singletrack climb that were cheering and encouraging me as I passed, which was a big morale booster TBH. As soon as I could see the Big Bear village descending Knickerbocker fire road, the clouds opened (figuratively) and I was exalting with being done with my effort and how epic it was.

This time often marks my local minimum in fitness (and CTL) through the calendar year, so like last time I did it, I was in great difficulty after the first few hours. The rest of the month will feature some more endurance MTB racing and unstructured volume increases, before I FTP test in November and start training more religiously. The event was a total blast and I look forward to returning next year for the 10th anniversary!

Got to see an amazing sun rise again on an early morning 2 hr z2 ride. One of these days I'm going to bump one of my mid week rides to 2 1/2 or 3 hours. 2 hours is simply not enough time in this perfect weather.

2 hrs this morning, all on Z. I don't like going outside with lights and its too dark when I'm riding atm. Ready for this clock switch.

2 hrs in a "C" paced group ride with periodic sprints each lap, then another hour on the TT bike, just getting used to spending time in position again. Did 1x15' at high z2 and 1x10' at z3. NBD. Might ride it outside next week.

Strength workout on Monday and Fiesta TTT 4 laps 1/4 lap pulls on TT bike.

My legs felt pretty good and the 4 laps non stop with exchanges provides enough engagement and effort to keep it interesting.

At the peak of our excitement, like the Christmas Story bee bee gun thing..........could have ripped the pedals off the bike last night and.............the di2 needs charging small ring ride of shame. Womp womp. So, hard up hill, spinout down.

Similar note, on a Zwift racing league race last night, had my non-drive side crankarm start to come loose (2nd time in 4 races - I tightened the bolt specifically before this race after having to abort Saturday 6 minutes in) about 4-5 km from the finish. Hoped I could just press inward with my legs and keep it on for the finish, but the arm started to wobble, so I ended up having to hop off the bike in the middle of the climb segment that finished the race, tighten the binder bolt, and hop back on to finish the race. Cost me 20 seconds, a bunch of places. and even more shame. Just built this bike up, and I swear I know how to build/maintain my bikes, but this new build (which fits me better than what I had been riding and goes like a rocket when it works) has been a lot of trouble. Still can't get the FD to shift to my satisfaction, so I just leave it in the big ring - that's why its on the trainer.

Yesterday I had a bunch of work to do so I ended up just doing a weight session mid day. Woke up today and knocked out a bunch of work and decided to go cruise the local mtb trails with no real plan. I ended up smashing 7 PRs, including some long segments by more than 5%! Also found a new max heart rate, so that’s cool.

I also tried a new homemade drink mix. 50/50 maltodextrin & fructose. 50-75% cheaper than pretty much any other drink mix out there and has very little flavor and no GI issues.

Wednesday - Strength training. I like using the Hammer Strength lifting station and the Olympic bar / weights. My starting sequence is warmup on Stages bike, band walking (muscle activation) and then back squat, deadlift, leg press and Bulgarian split squat. I then move on to upper body. The most challenging leg work for me is the back squat so I put it first.

Thursday was track day. We are supposed to do starts, jumps and flying 200 but 90 gear inches or less.

Warmup, 4 jumps - 2 seated and 2 standing in 84 gi followed by 4 flying 200 meter 10’ RBI then 2 1/4 lap standing starts in 90 gi. My legs felt amazing considering the strength work the day before.

My legs are pretty cooked this AM.

Training has been haphazard lately due to travel and other life. But I’m going to try something new this fall. I’m doing a modified triathlon plan because I discovered there’s an off road tri in Tahoe City next summer that’s literally on the trails we ride all the time. So I’m trying to get back in the water and start running again. I don’t remember being this slow a runner!
And I’m doing as many CX races as I can fit, but absolutely no expectations, just using them for intensity. Hopefully this will result in better overall fitness going into the New Year.

2 1/2 hour z2 plus another hour of mtb trails with the family. Now it’s time for a nap!

A quick hour of z2 plus a 3x5' @ vo2 at 530am, no caffeine. Matched my best 5' power of the year on all three without much trouble.

Gained 20% CTL over the last 3 weeks or so (peaked at 50 last block, peaked at 60 this block), it's getting very close to a de-load. It's just tough to de-load when the weather forecast looks so good!