Training: All done!

Training summary for this week included a lot of intensity but lower time on the bike.

• Monday rest day
• Tuesday - The first third of my workout was 110% with the A's then a strong Solo Threshold interval of 20min followed by another a few minutes later.
• Wednesday - Threshold climbing at 219, 233, 275 normalized powers on three climbs felt good. Left out one of the normal climbs I would do on Wednesday.
• Thursday - Rest Day
• Friday - Tempo day, I did 2x20 min Tempo runs at 215np and then easy the rest of the ride.
• Saturday - Tempo climbing day up Mount Diablo. Great powers, felt good. Glad it is taper time.
• Sunday - Just a easy two hour recovery/endurance ride.

My final fitness numbers are a little lower then I would have liked but I feel good so hopefully with more rest my form will get better quickly. Currently I have a fitness of 85.3, stress of 115 and form of -31.2. By next Friday I would like to see numbers like 80 fitness, 50 stress and +/- 10 on form.

Trying to dial in the numbers. With rest you loss fitness. So that is why you see my current fitness level of 85+ will drop to 80, also to be strong your body needs to have less stress, so stress will go down when you have rest as well. Now form is a number that quantifies the real key point in a race week. Form will go up from -17 to hopefully 0 meaning your taper is right on the money. My prediction is next week I might not be in the best form with only 5 days till I race but we will see...

Training: First Week of the Last Training Block

• Monday: Hammered up and over Patterson Pass, working on 4 main climbs using them as intervals and one sprint to round out a great group ride. The purpose of these climbing intervals is to increase my VO2 capacity without going Anaerobic. My anaerobic threshold is 255 watts (w) and up. My intervals where 232w, 241w, 254w, 236w (with a mechanical) and the sprint lead out was @ 223w the climbs where all different and ranged from 6 to 9 minutes the lead out sprint was about 4minutes. As you can see I got right up on the edge of going Anaerobic with a 254w w/ a average heart rate of 165 climbing "Religion" a hill used in the 08 tour of CA.


• Tuesday: Felt great for how much work I did on Monday. My goal today was to go Anaerobic and race with the A group. I went the farthest this summer with them all the way to what we call the "pimples" two small bumps that usually separate the wheat from the chafe. I a made over with them but could not recover. I then hooked up with a group of 5 rider and we hammered at a steady Tempo pace and they let me go off the front down N Livermore solo. They didn't catch me until the turn to go long or short. I wanted to stay with then so I waited for there decision. We went shot but met up with the A's that went long and I jump both groups and made a run at the sprint line. I started at 900w and hammer for about 30 second at 700 then settled into a 400-500 pace until about 200 meters to go. i was spent by then but the groups did not catch me, I won the sprint. I also set a personal best Normalized 60 minute power for the year. Tomorrow I will do a Climbing Threshold workout, That will be a big test is I can recover and hole the three long limbs at 210-215.


• Wednesday - Great climbing day. three of the 4 climbs where all yearly best power averages and my compact cranks average an extra 5-8 rpm on all the climbs. All climbs where in my Anaerobic Threshold levels of 217-243 and better then my goals for the day. After three hard days I cannot believe how ell I feel.


• Thursday is a rest day I ran 2 miles and kayaked about 4. Hope I fell good for the weekend.


• Friday - Wanted to go out and spin with a few Tempo efforts, it just wasn't there. Mon-Wed took a toll on me. I managed a few short tempo runs but I rally need to just spin so I did.


• Weekend Plans - Saturday & Sunday will be two long climbing days and it will be a scorcher out there at 100+ both day. That should mimic race day conditions to a tee. I will also take a 4-5 hour rest and go for a recovery ride after each workout as well. again that should mimic some of the conditions I will face. My plan is to ascend Mt Hamilton Saturday and Mt Diablo Sunday.

Training: Ahhhh, a recovery week

This week is about rest and recovery. It is actually a short week, Sun-Friday, but easy none the less. I still did and intensity ride Thursday so I will not lose and fitness. This week I went from a 74 to 71 CLT, a software calculated number for tracking fitness levels while reducing my bodies training stress level from 128 back sown to 84 ATL. And increasing another calculated level called TSB or from level, it should be close to 0 - 10 when the event begins, we will see if I can nail that number. The Form (TBS) went from a low of -59.7 back to a better -17 today. So I look OK for another three week block starting tomorrow.

I know some of you are going what heck is he talking about; CLT (fitness) ATL (stress) TBS (form) but I thought I would add it from now on for those of you who are interested in power meter data and its effects on the body. The software I use to calculate all of my power meter data is call TrainingPeaks WKO+.

During this recovery week I also finalized my bike equipment, a friend let me have his compact crankset which with the help of the great folks at Livermore Cyclery, i managed to swap out and will train on my new compact cranks for about three weeks and through the event. This compact cranks have small front chaingrings and will help me increase my cadence levels during the tough climbs, saving my legs from even more misery then they are already going to receive.

Training: End of Training Block

This was the last week of my three week block and it was painful.

• After resting on Monday, Tuesday I work on overloading my body by riding with the A group at our noon ride and doing normal Road Race simulations until I was dropped then held a 30 min. threshold pace. This type of workout we are trying to increase overall conditioning and increasing the ability to perform longer at max. effort. and it builds power.


• Wednesday was harder yet; with Threshold climbing on 4 climbs ranging from 8-16 minutes and power levels of 200-238. This type of work helps create the ability to push at threshold power levels (Threshold=Max you can do for about an hour). For the 508 this will help me on my longer climbs by having the ability to climb harder and not blow up for the rest of the event


• Thursday - Off the bike and on the kayak for an endurance paced paddle. This also helps my legs recover from Tue/Wed


• Friday - Though I went out with the group I let them go and just soloed for to long Sub-threshold sets of 30-40 min.


• Saturday - a great climb from my house up to the summit of Mt Diablo. Left at 4am and submitted about 7:30. My focus here was trying to stay in Endurance level but Diablo is to step with my current gearing (soon to change) and ended up basically at threshold for the 11 mile climb up North Gate to the summit. (PS it was about 30-35 degrees cooler then last weeks ride)


• Sunday - my knee hurt today, I think i slept on it funny. I only did a 2hr Endurance ride.

Training: Trip to Summit of Mt.Hamiltion

Training with only 7 weeks to prepare.

For thous of you not interested in the details of cycling and training I will have a summary paragraph to give you the just of it. For you cyclist I will then add the meat a potatoes following the summaries.

SUMMARY: Today I attempted to climb to the summit of Mt. Hamilton and back from my office in Livermore. the round trip was about 90 miles and included just under 7,000 feet of climbing. It was a scorcher in the mid 90's and I didn't bring enough water. Luckily my teammate Carl Butler was with me and summitted and return to give me another bottle before I reached the summit.

My main focus in these long days in the saddle is to work on climbing miles and just seat time while maintaining Endurance power levels (for me that is 120-160 watts). For the day I managed to stay primarily in this zone and averaged 143w for the 7 hours. 70% of my day was in two zones 30% in Active Recovery and 40% in Endurance.

Food and water were way off. I tried to calculate my time and distance to the summit for refueling and failed miserably. After the ride I was sick to my stomach for about 4-5 hours.

But everything felt good the following day.