Time Trialing

Solo's blog got the tallest freak to bite on the "constant power is better" argument a bit ago. And yeah constant power works great if it is steady uphill or all flat, with a few mellow rollers, but not so good when you toss in a few downhills.

Joe Friel has a bit up there with his "Three Ps". Seasonal power can take three years or more to develop. Well I like the sounds of it. Since my muscles develop about as fast as a Malus domestica tree grows, I've got maybe a year or two more (longer if I don't really get better at focusing the training).

that's an aside (me with an aside - a tangent? no freaking way).

Okay so he posts that, tracks back to a previous one with some pacing info here.

Then Alex pop's in saying "where have I seen that before" with a link to his blog entry on the 8th of March this year.

Rather than pile on in solo's thread i'd just pop em up here.

The Waterville TT is on saturday. It is looking like I won't make the trek up there, as much as I'm tempted to, and the course sounds great, distance not so bad (30k), I'm feeling tired, So I think today began a rest week. Taking the whole weekend off the bike. Sunday is a no-ride day and staturday, well, I haven't had a weekend off the bike in a bit, and it is well documented how old guys need to take more recovery time. The debate is 1 week out of 4 or 1 every 2 or something in between. All depending on intensity and what not.

Pulling the trailer two days in a row last week had me reaffirming the knowledge that i was really racing cross perpetually tired for the first couple seasons back at it without realizing it. That or maybe the tipping towards this side of 40 is demanding more rest and recovery.

The smack down ride yesterday was pretty solid and brutal. A smaller turnout and I was just not feeling it. Almost hoping we'd just decide to go ride slow for 15 miles and call it good. Instead of the constant attacking that is normally the MO for the ride we did it TTT style. one of us drilling it more on the up hills, one drilling it more on the flats and downhills, but overall keeping a very steady and high pace and sticking together. It wasn't the complete get ready to puke, barely recover -if at all- and repeat ride like normal, but it was a steady very high output. I was well into zone 5 one most of the hills trying to hang with the smallest of us, and everyone else was sitting at sub 120 hr in my draft while i was at max into the wind. Lots of just emptying the tank. I honestly haven't really ridden like this consistently in the past (not counting trainer intervals last year for cross). And despite the crappy feelings at the start of the ride and then just about getting dropped before the water tower turn by a slight acceleration, I managed to find some legs.

it is just amazing how MUCH "warm up" it takes before everything starts to work and I can demand more from my legs. Yeah I'm fascinated more than most by things like that. In reality it took more than 10 miles and three vicious hills with some hard steady state in the middle before I had the extra gear. Sort of like the hidden level or getting unlimited ammo in a video game, all of a sudden there is something extra there. I still got gapped a touch on the Tourtellot hill climb, there i still something about that particular mile long climb that i haven't managed to conquer reliably yet, but I managed to catch back on w/o making them wait too long for me and it was back to putting the screws into it.

Cold night. Some of the descents we were going fast enough into the wind that I was starting to get chilled. Any longer at that speed and it would have really been bad. We weren't that fast though I guess. Word from someone's Polar is we were a tenth under 21 mph avg with the stops and long climbs and short descents. Damn - i thought it was better than that. with only about 1400 feet of climbing, well i'd have thought maybe three people could have done better, even with the headwind all the way back. granted - I have no idea what the speeds have been like in the past weeks, but we did less soft pedaling this week and more just steady state. So yeah. I'm still slow. Oh well. Nothing no one didn't already know. But hey, i'm still positive, happy and trying to make a different and importantly: having fun.

But hey - I got the fueling right, and man what a difference. There was actually power in my legs. There's a cat 6 epiphany for ya. Maybe some day I won't be slow. Some day. Maybe.

The rain was cold this morning riding in...

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