recap of the last few rides and one time trial

2011-04-23 (Saturday): 20 miles which includes a warmup and cool down at the Pontiac Lake Time Trial (USAC). I finished in 16th place (Cat.1) in about 1:40:42 (lap#1 48, lap#2 51). I recovered within minutes of finishing... which means I should have pushed harder. I did wipe out in the first lap cutting my left leg.

2011-04-24 (Sunday): a 14 mile recovery ride in Wixon area out to Island Lake area, then had Easter dinner with good friends and family.

2011-04-26 (Tuesday): a excellent ride with Paul Bailey, we did the back roads and I got in 30 miles. The last few miles were at ball busting speed, at least it felt that way.... my heart rate was maxed for almost 10 minutes... I have less than that to get home!

Total YTD: 1145 miles.

Finally some singletrack!

The following were rides leading up to the Yankee Springs Time Trial:
2011-04-09 (Saturday): 45 miles back road riding, fairly fast pace.
2011-04-10 (Sunday): 45 miles more back roads, not as fast but more hills.
2011-04-12 (Tuesday): 32 miles with the guys of Paint Creek team. This ride was without Keith and probably a good thing since I wasn't up for a all out VO2Max ride.

2011-04-17 (Sunday):
Finally my first bit of singletrack riding was a 2 miles warm-up on the small loop 35 minutes before my time trial start. Then at 10:19:30am I started the first of 2 11 mile laps. I felt fine the first lap until I had to get off my bike and replace the chain, it took a few minutes to work out the tightness. Its best to keep pedaling until the race is done otherwise your legs will pay for it. The second lap the chain came off again and that's when I realized that my rear disc brake was dragging... so my bike didn't gain weight after all. I finished with 18th out of 24 in my class. 24 miles total that day.

2011-04-20 (Wednesday): 10.2 miles. Today was the most productive non-race ride so far this year. While I did not go all out, the hills were getting to me and I wasn't expecting that. It didn't help my spirits much to be following a singlespeed guy who's old enough to be my big brother. I couldn't keep up on the hills! It was 41 degrees today and the reason I am mentioning this is because I felt that 3 layers including my new thermal jacket was too much, I could have easily rode with one under layer and the jacket.

All in all I have a lot more to learn... while I have in the miles this year, I need to get in more higher intensity rides. This is where the rides with the fast guys on my team will help.

Total YTD: 1081 miles.
new goal: focus my interval training, and fine tuning my training strategy.

totally worth being pelted in the eyes by the sleet...

Today's ride was totally worth being pelted in the eyes by the sleet! Sure now I say this.. but during the ride I was wanting to kick someone's ass for this crappy weather. We started the ride at 11:20am, we were done by 2:00pm. We did a different route that took us to the northern parts of Clarkston, out to Fox Lake Road and back through Oxford. One of the reasons the ride was slower, is since I am "on-call" for work, I had to take a call... and arrange for a co-worker to do some computer nerd work for me since I was miles from home and my laptop (yeah I don't take my laptop on my rides with me) was at home safe and warm. Then it started to rain, then rain and sleet, then I got really cold, and yes even with high cadence pedaling you can still get cold... when your clothing is totally wet. I couldn't see more then 3 feet ahead of me... so that meant I had to stay on my training partner's wheel. He was hauling ass and if I wanted to make it home safe I had to keep up. For some reason my left eye was pelted with more sleet than my right eye. It's my left eye being my "good eye" this was tough as I might as well be totally blind in my right eye (legally blind in my right eye). For some reason my glasses were all fogged up and I had to wipe the inside of my lenses every 40 or 60 seconds... the last 1.5 miles I was really wanting to be done.. I was cold. Its been more than an hour since I have been home and I am just now starting to feel warm. With all this torture I had better be a stronger racer this year! I averaged 12.75 mph with 34 miles of total distance yes there were hills, as usual.

YTD distance: 924.8 miles.

15.11 mph average speed with the hills.

Saturday we did a 34 mile ride on the back roads, ended up at Stony did a lap with all the options. Then back through the back roads and home.. all in 2 hours and 15 minutes. I felt a little weaker on the last 8 or so miles.. was glad to be home. Bowling after in Oxford then walking around the mall later sure wasn't providing the rest I needed.

YTD distance: 890.8 miles.