Washington Blvd Oval (Pittsburgh)

Well I've now done a total of 3 'C' races and a 'B' race at the Oval. My form is improving as well as my results. C Results - 15th, 12th, & 11th. B Results - 13th.

Here are the stats from my last 2 C races and the B race.
Stats: C - 5/1 (12th)
15 miles (30 laps)
36min 50sec
24.4mph avg
296w NP
161 avg HR

Stats: C - 5/15 (11th)
15 miles (30 laps)
36min 30sec
24.7mph avg
293w NP
162 avg HR

Stats: B - 5/16 (13th)
15 miles (30 laps)
34min 50sec
25.8mph avg
286w NP
158 avg HR

2008 Tour of Pennsylvania

Officials have announced a statewide world class espoir (under age 25) bike race in conjunction with Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary.

The Tour of PA will be sponsored by American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and Highmark Inc. The event will take place June 24-29, 2008, starting out in Philly with stage finishes in Valley Forge, Harrisburg, Bedford and the Laurel Highlands, and the final stage in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Business Times
Lancaster Online
PR News Wire

Back in the GAME - Washington Blvd Oval (Pittsburgh)

My cyclingling has been in havoc for the past 4 months. My office relocated from WV to PA (4 hrs away) and my family is still in the transition process. So my training and racing has taken a major hit.

In the last month I've finally had a chance to get in some miles and damn have I lost some fitness. So.... the weekly series here in Pittsburgh at the Washington Blvd Oval by ACA started a couple of weeks ago. I made a trip downtown on opening night (raining and cold) to watch the A's and B's. It looked pretty cool. It is a 1/2 mile oval. There is a slight hump at the start finish line otherwise it is a very slight down grade on the back stretch and very slight up grade on the front stretch. It is an old driving training course. They run weekly racing April till September, the C's & Women on Tuesday's and A's & B's on Wednesday's.

I'm nowhere close to race fitness but I figured what better way to train than to suffer. So I decide to give the C race a shot and just hope not to get dropped. The weather was great, it was finally sunny and somewhat warm. They run though a clinic prior to the Tuesday races. They cover pacelining and misc race information for newbies. They ran the women/junior race then we were up. My plan was to hang toward the back and gauge my fitness. We were doing 30 laps. Well long story short I didn't get dropped. On the last lap I moved up into decent position on the back stretch. In the last corner some dude in front of me just sat up and I had to hit my brakes. I got back into my sprint and passed a handful of guys to come in 15th out of 33.

With my leve of fitness I was satisfied with the result. We'll give it a whirl again this week. I may even be dumb enough to give the B's a shot on Wednesday.

Stats:
15 miles (30 laps)
35min 50sec
25.1mph avg

My Training (part 9) - A little dedication

Aaahhhh signs of some dedication in the past 2 days of rides. Yesterday I did hill repeats with threatening skies, it actually started raining for about the last 15 minutes of the ride. And today I did a 20 mile loop in the cold and flurries. I'm just going to have to take weather out of the equation if I'm going to get into any kind of shape. I would say "on form" but I'm so far from that it would be embarrassing for me to utter those words.

Here are my stats from the past 2 days.

Hill Repeats (8 climbs)
18.5 miles (1hr 27min), Avg 12.7 mph, avg HR 141, avg normalized power 273 watts, 2130 ft of total climb. Most of my hill repeats were in the 5 minute range around 325 watts.

Tempo Ride
19.7 miles (1hr 9min), Avg 17 mph, Avg HR 141, Avg normalized power 254 watts, 630 ft of total climb.

Well that's a good start to the week. Let's see if I can keep it going.

Pittsburgh Relocation

Well, looks like I'm going to relocating to the Pittsburgh PA area in the next few months. Specifically North Strabane, Cecil or Peters Townships in Washington County (South of Pittsburgh). My company is relocating my office and there just aren't any options in my field to stay local.

I would be interested to hear from anyone about the local racing/cycling scene in the Pittsburgh area. I would even be interested to hear from anyone that knows the area in general.

My Training (part 8) - I'm back.

I just realized exactly how long it had been since I last posted. I suck! Sorry guys.

Thanks to those that commented about reading the blog. I hope that you keep coming back and I'll try to get back into the posting groove.

My riding has been pretty inconsistent since my last training post on Dec 19. But I have put in some decent rides. 4 rides over 30 miles and 1 over 50 miles. I came down with the stomach bug just before Christmas, that was nice. And last week I wasn't feeling very well. I hope that I can stay health enough to get back into some consistent training.

Compared to last year, I am way behind on my base miles. And I can really tell a difference on the climbs. At this point I should be stepping up the intensity of my training with some interval work. But with my lack of miles I think that I'm going to hold off for a few more weeks. The weather is supposed to be decent the rest of this week so hopefully I can get in some quality miles.

Simple Request - Comments

For some reason I have practically no comments on my blog. That either means that I'm not posting anything worth commenting on or even worse, no on is reading this stuff.

Please, if your reading this please leave a comment so I know that I'm not just typing to myself.

Thanks.

My Training (part 7) - Another beating....

I got in a very short ride on Saturday. That put me at 130mile (7hrs 55min) for the week. That is my highest weekly total in months! Now... let's see if I can get some consistancy going.

Yesterday (Monday) I did another ride with the paster and took another beating. We did the Wayne loop that totals 50 miles, 7 climbs and 3345 total feet of climbing. He did all the climbs in his big ring and still smashed me. I felt decent, I'm still way off my normal fitness.

Here are my stats. 51.1 miles (2hrs 59min). Avg 17.1mph, avg normalized power 274 watts, avg HR 143, 3345 ft of total climb. I'm usually very concerned with average speed but I'm trying to sort of ignore it through the this phase. It was a very enjoyable ride, conversation was good. Riding with someone is so much more enjoyable for me than solo rides.

My Training (part 6) - A little progress

Ahhh... FINALLY a fairly solid week of training after quite some time of hit and miss. It feels good.

Today (Friday) I only had about 90 minutes to spare for a ride. My stats were as follows. 23.7 miles (1hr 27min), avg 16.3mph, avg normalized power 263 watts, avg HR 140, 1680 ft of total climb. It was another nice day in the high 50's but a bit windy.

So far that puts me at 120 miles this week. I hope that I can get in at least one ride over the weekend to take me over 150 (over 7 hrs) (but I'm not banking on it). 120 is my highest weekly mileage total since August. Now that is just pitiful. No wonder I'm sucking of late.

My Training (part 5) - stand back... I'm on a roll

I’m in a pretty good groove so far this week, 97 miles in 4 days and counting. If I can squeeze a long ride in over the weekend (which isn’t looking like it is going to happen) I may get up to 160 ish. Not bad for mid December. The past 4 days of workouts are as follows.

Monday, 43.5 miles (2hrs 34min). Avg 16.9mph, avg normalized power 257 watts, avg HR 145, 2460 ft of total climb. This consisted of a fair about of Tempo and above. I did this ride with a friend (51 y/o pastor) and he kicked my a$$! I only hope to be ½ as fit as him at that age, who am I kidding I would be happy to be ½ that fit at 35. He is a machine. And on the climbs he completely crushed me. But that gives me inspiration that I need to get with it.

Tuesday, 10 miles (40 min). Avg 15mph, avg normalized power 204 watts, avg HR 130, 155 ft of total climb. I didn’t plan on getting in a ride today but it was just too nice outside not to (65° and sunny). I just tooled around a bit. I did 4 sets of spinups (maxed out at 153 rpm). Also, I did 4 hill sprints of 20 seconds each (avg 550 watts).

Wednesday, 20.6 miles (1hr 16min). Avg 16.2mph, avg normalized power 233 watts, avg HR 135, 850 ft of total climb. Did this ride with a co-worker. Again temps were in the 60’s, can’t complain about that in December. This was for the most part an endurance ride.

Today, Thursday, 23 miles (1hr 26min). Avg 16mph, avg normalized power 253 watts, avg HR 139, 1680 ft of total climb. Rode with a friend. Yet another beautiful day for December (55° and sunny). Another endurance ride. For anyone interested for this temp I wore knee and arm warmers in addition to the typical kit and that was perfect.

My Training (part 5) - logging some quality miles

I decided to take Tuesday off and do a 2 hour ride on Wednesday. It turned out to be a pretty nice day a bit windy but the temp was pretty nice for this time of the year (Temperature 52.0 F (11.1 C), Wind SW 14mph).

I did 33 miles (1hr 55min). Avg 17.4mph, avg normalized power 250 watts, avg Hr 145, 1490 ft of total climb. Not bad numbers for base. My plan was to stay mostly in zone 2 (135-145bpm) and do some 10min tempo (146-154bpm) intervals. On the climbs I'm trying to stay below LT in bigger gears (cadence of 50-60) alternating between seated and out of the saddle.

I plan to gradually increase my tempo interval lengths for this type of ride. I will also try to keep an eye on my wattage during the intervals and base them more off wattage than HR.

My Training (part 4) - getting back in the groove

I suck as a blogger, I know. I've been neglecting my blogging duties. I'll try get back on track with it along with my training.

Yes, I'm actually training.... I think. I believe that I am finally over my sinus infection from Hell. And hopefully the antibiotics are working there way out of my system after killing all the bad stuff that was dragging me down. So...I can FINALLY get back to training. I was off the bike for what seems like forever. Not training along with being sick seems to have really hit my fitness.

But never fear, I'm putting that behind me and working on my training plan (and training) for the upcoming season. I did a group ride a week ago this past Saturday. I rode from home to the shop to meet up with the group. My total ended up around 50 miles. It was a pretty large group for this time of the year, about 15. Also, the pace was a bit too much for this time of the year. I was still feeling the effects of being sick and toward the end decided to drop off the pace. It wasn't exacly tempo/endurance pace.

Since then I've got in a 35 and two 25 mile endurance rides. And today around 10 miles because it was freakin' freezing out (Temperature 27.0 F (-2.8 C), Windchill 19 F (-7 C)). I'm usually not this much of a cold weather wuss but it will take a bit to get reacclimated to this crap.

My Training (part 3)

Well my current training has been shot to hell. My sinus infection has finally got the best of me. I have to break down and go on antibiotics. I sure hope that does some good because I feel like $hit! I'm headed to Chicago on Wednesday for a couple of days for work. Then when I return Friday night (@10pm) I'll be headed to the Jacob Fetty training camp in Marlinton WV for the weekend.

Floyd's Still Kickin'

If you haven't been keeping up, there has been lots going on concerning Floyd. Yes, he's still kickin' and with that resurfaced hip I'm sure with a lot less pain.

For all thing concering Floyd be sure to check out Trust But Verify for the latest updates. This sight is on top of everything that has to do with Floyd's case. I hit it daily to catch up.

At first I was all in Floyd's camp. Then with word of the exogenous testosterone my faith was slipping fast. Now with the release of all the documents that Floyd has made available and following some of the discussion by a few very intelligent people on the Daily Peleton Forum I'm getting the faith back. I sure hope that after this all is said and done that the TRUTH will have come out, no matter for or against Floyd. But I have to say I do hope the truth is that he didn't dope.

My Training (part 2)

I'm still trying to shake this cold that has been hanging with me for a couple of weeks now. It started as sinus then seemed to move into my chest. Now I have an annoying smoker's cough. I've done less training trying to allow myself to recover but I can just feel myself losing fitness and getting fat.

Wednesday it was raining out. I thought that I would do some time on the rollers then do stairs. I did about 25 minutes on the rollers and could really tell that I was sick. At 150 watts my heartrate was around 130 bpm. That is WAY off from my normal. Just a few weeks ago I did some intervals at 300watts and my HR was around 130 bpm. Another recover ride at 200 watts and my HR was 115 bpm.

Based on that I decided that the stairs might not be a good idea. I plan to do a long ride on Thursday since the weather is supposed to be nice. I'll wait to decide on the tempo of the ride based on how my HR is responding.

I just hope that I can shake this thing before the training clinic, a little over a week from now. I may have to make another visit to the Dr.

My Training (part 1)

Up to this point my blog has been just reporting the facts and a bit non personal. Since road racing season is over and done with I'm going to document my training leading up to the 2007 season.

I am a CAT 4. My objective through the winter is to improve my fitness to be a very competitive 4 and upgrade to a 3 by mid season (June'ish).

I've neglected a structured training program for quite some time. I began the 2006 preseason with a very structured training program that I developed from Friel's Cyclist Training Bible. But some where along the way I fell off the wagon and resorted to my typical mish mash training. I hope to not stumble this again.

I'm currently in a bit of a down time right now. I've been doing some riding trying to maintain some fitness and recover from a cold but no structure what so ever. I have also been doing a bit of running and stairs as cross training. My knees have been bothering me from the running so I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep that up.

As I stated in a previous post I'll be attending a training clinic by Jacob Fetty in November. I hope to talk with Jacob and establish a training schedule that will make the best use of the time that I have available in making me a better cyclist.

FS Concepts Training Camp/Clinic

I stumbled across this just a few days ago. FS Concepts will be conducting a 2 day cycling training camp/clinic (flyer w/ details) at Dirtbean Hale in Marlinton, WV November 17-19. And the kicker of it all, what would you guess something like this would set you back? For example, the Carmichael Training Systems 2 day camp runs $600 and that does NOT include meals or lodging. But this is only $200 ($170 w/ early registration) for the entire deal (yes, that DOES include lodging). If you are within a 3-4 hr drive it is a great deal if you ask me.

I'm already signed up. I'm pretty excited about it. Being an anal retentive geek, I always feel the need to be well read on the subject of interest. Since I've begun cycling and gave into the addiction, I've read a good deal on training and racing. It will be interesting to get direct feedback from Jacob Fetty, the instructor/owner of FS Concepts.

I will post after the clinic with my thoughts on the experience.

Results - Fallen Leaf Road Race

Results for the Fallen Leaf (Road Race) (Sunday 10/8) in Oregonia, OH are FINALLY posted (11/15/06, 38 days to get posted).

Fallen Leaf Rider Comments
Raisin Rack Cycling
Dark Horse Racing
7 Hills Racing
Savage Hill Cycling

I have decided as a service to the racers I am going to begin posting exactly how long it take for the results to get posted for each race. I'm sure that you will notice a trend form promoter to promoter. I am also going to check with usacycling about the reporting of results and what they require. I'll post what I learn from them.

Race Calendar - Oct 8

Fallen Leaf (Road Race) Sunday, October 8 in Oregonia, OH
1/2/3 ($200/5), 3/4 ($125/4), 4/5 ($75/3), Women ($75/3), Junior 10-18. The course is a 7 mile ciruit that is virtually flat with good pavement and low traffic.

Full 2006 Regional Race Calendar
Full 2007 Regional Race Calendar

Results - Tour de London & Harford Days Crit

Road Race Results (Saturday 9/9) and Crit Results (Sunday 9/10) for Tour de London in London KY are posted.

Results for Hartford Days Criterium have NOT been posted yet. The race promoter was Team Columbus so you make the call if you ever think that they will be posted. Is it just me or do you see a pattern here? Exactly how hard can it be to get the results posted?

Hartford Days Crit Rider Comments
Raisin Rack Cycling
Savage Hill